Oral Answers to Questions

SCOTLAND

The Secretary of State was asked—

Post Office Network

Angus Robertson: What recent discussions he has had with Ministers on the future of the post office network in Scotland.

David Cairns: I meet regularly with ministerial colleagues to discuss a wide range of issues.

Angus Robertson: I thank the Minister for that reply. I am sure that he will acknowledge the concerns across the country about the future of the Post Office, but is he aware of the growing dismay about those politicians who claim to support postal services while actually wanting to privatise them? That is, of course, the policy of the Liberal Democrats.

David Cairns: I entirely agree with the point that the hon. Gentleman—whom I almost called my right hon. Friend—makes. However, the problem is worse than he says, as the Government have made available thousands of millions of pounds through the budget of the Department of Trade and Industry to help support and sustain the post office network. Of course, it is also Liberal Democrat policy to abolish the DTI and spend its budget elsewhere.

David Marshall: When my hon. Friend discusses the future of post offices with his ministerial colleagues, will he ensure that their importance in urban areas—and especially poorer urban areas—is fully taken into consideration? What support are the Government giving to such post offices to enable them to compete?

David Cairns: My hon. Friend makes an exceptionally important point. Post offices have a key role to play in deprived urban communities, just as they do in rural communities. The urban post office network has benefited from the £2,000 million that has been invested in recent years. That money has enabled the Post Office to become part of a global banking network and to compete in the modern age. The reality is that customers will determine the Post Office's future—we cannot expect that the post office network in 10 or 20 years' time will be like the one that existed 10 or 20 years ago.

David Mundell: It is appropriate today that the House should mark the passing during the recess of Hector Monro, who represented the Dumfries constituency for some 33 years and held several ministerial offices. Hector was a great servant of this House, of his constituents and of Scotland—and never more so than in the aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing. He will be sorely missed.
	Does the Minister agree with the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, and the many Scots who have signed its petition, that the post office network in Scotland has an important social value? If so, why have the Government systematically removed business from that network?

David Cairns: First, may I associate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and colleagues on this side of the House with the warm tribute that the hon. Gentleman paid to Hector Monro? My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown) has spoken of the warmth with which Hector is still remembered in the constituency for the work that he did for the south of Scotland.
	The hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) asked about the nature of the post office network, but I remind him that the Government have provided financial assistance, in the form of the investment of taxpayers' money, that amounts to well over £2,000 million. That speaks not of a Government who are withdrawing support from the Post Office, but of one who continue to support it. I contrast that with the fact that 3,500 post offices throughout the UK closed in the 18 years of Conservative Government.

Gordon Banks: May I draw my hon. Friend the Minister's attention to Auchterarder sub-post office? When the VisitScotland tourist office there closed, Donald Ramsay, the sub-postmaster, had the foresight to enter into negotiations and secure 90 per cent. of its business in his post office. Does my hon. Friend agree that local post offices might be able to take advantage of similar opportunities when tourist offices and the like are placed under threat? Will he join me in congratulating Mr. Ramsay on his foresight in embarking on that new business venture?

David Cairns: I am more than happy to pay tribute to Mr. Ramsay and to my hon. Friend, who I know played a part in negotiating the arrangement that has brought the tourist office into the post office. I look forward to VisitScotland opening an office in Port Glasgow so that the same synergy can be established there. My hon. Friend has given the House an example of how the Post Office can enter into new entrepreneurial ventures that will help sustain it. That stands in sharp contrast to those hon. Members who go around collecting petitions about the future of post offices, while supporting policies that would see them close.

State Aid Rules

Alistair Carmichael: What recent discussions he has had with Government Departments and EU member states on the effect of future state aid rules on Scotland.

Douglas Alexander: I have regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on a range of issues, although as Secretary of State for Scotland, I have not discussed future state aid rules with representatives from other member states.

Alistair Carmichael: The Secretary of State is aware of the great anxiety in Shetland because of the complaints being investigated against various economic development projects that are claimed to have breached state aid rules. I hope that he and his Department will do all they can to work with the Scottish Executive and others to allow a satisfactory resolution of those complaints. Looking to the future, does he agree that what is needed is a system that allows for clarity in the prior approval of schemes and that recognises the economic fragility and peripherality of communities such as Shetland?

Douglas Alexander: The hon. Gentleman is right—I am aware of the concerns on the islands at the moment, given the ongoing disputed state aid issues, and I know that as the local representative he has taken a close interest in those matters. Indeed, I understand that I even featured in  The Shetland Times this week, such is the level of his concern. As he said, those matters are being explored in detail with Shetland Islands council, the public body concerned, the Scottish Executive and our Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Discussions are ongoing with the Commission to try to resolve the outstanding issue, but I should be clear that the principal responsibility lies with the public body in question—in this case Shetland Islands council, which is why I hope that we can find a resolution to these matters.

Ian Davidson: Does the Minister agree that the Chancellor is to be commended for many things, one of which is his view that EU state aid rules and regional aid rules are best repatriated, and that this is a classic example of where very little is added by having state aid rules and regional aid handled by Brussels? Far better to have it returned to member states.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Douglas Alexander: Clearly, the whole House is minded to pay tribute to the work of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
	A review of EU state aid is under way. I am glad to say that the thinking not just of the Treasury, but of the whole British Government—and, indeed, the Lisbon agenda—figures prominently in the ongoing review by the Commission. We want to see less but better targeted state aid and I believe we are making real progress in Europe towards that end.

Angus MacNeil: As state aid was the given excuse for the restructuring of Caledonian MacBrayne, does the Minister feel that the £16 million currently being wasted on restructuring would have been better spent on fare reductions, especially considering that some articulated lorries spend £1,000 on a return fare to the outer Hebrides? Should not every opportunity be taken during the restructuring to relocate Caledonian MacBrayne's headquarters to Stornoway, Tarbet, Lochmaddy, Lochboisdale or Castlebay, or all those ports? [ Interruption.]

Douglas Alexander: A very strong case for Gourock has just been put by my hon. Friend the Minister. Whenever I buy tickets for the MV Isle of Mull, I tend to buy them from Gourock and not from Lochmaddy, so I have a certain sympathy with his view.
	On the hon. Gentleman's substantive point, this is of course primarily a matter for the Scottish Executive, who are aware of the strength of feeling both on the outer and the inner isles on the future of Caledonian MacBrayne.

David Mundell: Given that the UK is the member state, is the Secretary of State satisfied with the existing arrangements with the Scottish Executive in relation to state aid rules, in particular their compliance? Is not this yet another example of a failure to have clear working arrangements in place between London and Edinburgh?

Douglas Alexander: I feel that the hon. Gentleman is stretching the point to return to a familiar theme at Scottish questions. As I sought delicately to suggest, responsibility lies primarily with Shetland Islands council, but of course we stand ready to work both through DEFRA and Scottish Executive Ministers to find a resolution to the dispute.

Wind Turbines

Mark Pritchard: If he will assess the effects of Government policy on wind turbines on migrating bird populations in Scotland.

David Cairns: Planning consent to site wind turbines is devolved to Scottish Executive Ministers for larger projects and to local authorities for others. In all cases, the relevant authority must comply with European obligations, including those arising under the birds and habitats directives.

Mark Pritchard: I thank the Minister for that reply. Although I welcome the progress—albeit slow progress—that the Government are making on renewables, may I express concern that often bird life and habitats are overlooked in the planning and decision-making processes? Does the Minister share my concern that the proposal by British Energy and AMEC on the Isle of Lewis does not fully explore the whole issue of the impact on migrating bird life, about which the Scottish population—a bird-loving population—have real concerns?

David Cairns: When the hon. Gentleman started to talk about endangered species in Scotland, I thought for a moment that he was talking about the Scottish Tory party. If the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) wants to debate that, he is very welcome to join us at Scotland Office questions.
	The hon. Gentleman raises a serious point—there is often tension between the global environmental gains to be made from renewable energy sources such as wind farms, and local environmental considerations, and it is important that they are balanced. That is why the European habitats directive must be taken into consideration before planning consent is given, and I am sure that he welcomes that EU regulation, as he welcomes all EU regulations. However, that highlights the need to take these decisions on a case-by-case basis based on the evidence, and not to adopt a strategy of calling for a moratorium on all wind- farm developments in Scotland . [ Interruption. ] Conservative Members may say that no one is saying that, but the Scottish Tory party is saying it.

Anne Begg: I certainly hope that bird habitats will be taken into account in the very exciting development on the Beatrice platform, which is run by Talisman, whose headquarters is in my constituency. People there are working out how to maximise the use of offshore wind—in fact, the turbines will be very large and one of them will be extremely large—but does my hon. Friend agree that such developments should not be jeopardised by any over-concern for wildlife, which, obviously, has to deal with the existing offshore platforms in the North sea in any case?

David Cairns: My hon. Friend is right to highlight the potential of deep-water offshore wind farms to get us beyond some of the tensions that occur when the local environmental impacts stop the global benefits of renewable energy. Of course, the trial on the Beatrice field is just beginning and we must consider its results with very great care.

Douglas Hogg: While it is obviously right that the interests of migrating bird populations should be taken into account, does the Minister agree that the siting of wind farms can provide a useful stream of revenue for farmers and landowners in respect of their properties, which might otherwise be financially unviable?

David Cairns: The right hon. and learned Gentleman makes an excellent point. Of course, wind farms have many possible benefits, not just the global benefits of reducing our carbon emissions and helping us to meet our targets. However, people in more and more farming communities recognise that if their farms are to be viable and sustainable, they must diversify from agriculture into other forms of income generation, and this is one of them.

Age Discrimination

Katy Clark: What steps the Government plan to take to ensure the enforcement of anti-age discrimination measures in Scotland.

Douglas Alexander: This is an important and enlightened measure, which came into effect earlier this month, and whose enforcement will be, as in other strands of discrimination legislation, mainly through employment tribunals and sheriff courts.

Katy Clark: I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer, but does he share my disappointment that some sections of the business community have used the opportunity of the introduction of this legislation to complain about burdens on business? Does he agree that they would do far better to welcome this legislation as a real opportunity to ensure that all sections of the community get a fair deal?

Douglas Alexander: I am in sympathy with my hon. Friend's point. I think that any modern business would want to be able to recruit and retain staff on the basis of competence and skills, rather than their age. This is a classic example of the sort of measure that will undoubtedly benefit the United Kingdom's businesses in the long term. There is no contradiction between running a business efficiently and running a business fairly.

Jo Swinson: I very much welcome the legislation. However, an estimated 56,000 Scots between the ages of 16 and 21 earn less than their older colleagues, solely on the basis of their age. Does the Secretary of State agree that such age discrimination is probably illegal and certainly unacceptable, and that it is time for the lower minimum wage rates for younger workers to go?

Douglas Alexander: Mr. Speaker, forgive my concern for the crocodile tears expressed about youth unemployment and the minimum wage. We considered the matter very carefully in government after 1997. Of course, the Conservative party then claimed that 1 million jobs would be lost as a consequence of what they judged would be a dangerous and reckless policy. In fact, the only people who ended up losing their jobs because of the manner in which we introduced the minimum wages were the Conservative MPs who opposed it. The serious point behind the measures that we took and the fact that we introduced a different rate for young workers was our profound concern to avoid significant youth unemployment, which is still too common in continental Europe. The virtual eradication of long-term youth unemployment has been one of the Government's most significant achievements. I believe that our measured and sensible approach to the introduction of the minimum wage has played a significant role in that success.

David Mundell: The Opposition fully support the new regulations. However, does the Secretary of State acknowledge that there has been a failure to convey to businesses, particularly small businesses in Scotland, the detail of the regulations? What proposals does he have to remedy that?

Douglas Alexander: I do not accept that suggestion. The Commission for Equality and Human Rights, which will come into force next year, will of course have a key role in education about and promotion of the regulation, but in the meantime sources of information are available to both small and large businesses to make sure that there is effective implementation of the regulation henceforth.

Immigration

Stewart Hosie: What recent discussions he has had with the Home Office about immigration into Scotland.

David Cairns: My right hon. Friend and I have regular discussions with Home Office colleagues about a range of issues as they affect Scotland.

Stewart Hosie: I thank the Minister for that answer, but he will be aware that the population of Scotland has now risen for three consecutive years, that the population of Glasgow has risen for two years and that last year the population of Dundee rose for the first time in a generation. Will he and the Secretary of State make representations to the Home Secretary that, no matter what he does in managed migration from the new EU-accession states, he should do nothing that will jeopardise the fragile recovery of Scotland's population?

David Cairns: The hon. Gentleman mentions the increase in Scotland's population as though the figures fell out of a clear blue sky without any effort by the Government and the Scottish Executive to bring them about. He should pay tribute to the First Minister for the fresh talent initiative that has helped to attract some of the brightest and best young people to come to study in Scotland and to stay in Scotland. The strength of the Scottish economy, which is benefiting from the strength of the United Kingdom economy, makes Scotland a very attractive place. What would happen if Scotland broke away from the rest of the UK? Can we imagine anybody wanting to come to a Scotland governed by the Scottish National party, as the country would be economically unviable and would not attract any—

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Rosemary McKenna: When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend discuss immigration with their colleagues, will they seek to ensure that asylum decisions are taken much more quickly? A great deal of distress is caused to families who have put down roots once a decision goes against them. The quicker that asylum decisions are taken, the better.

David Cairns: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and the new asylum model is designed to make sure that the initial decision is taken much more quickly and that any appeals that subsequently follow also happen more quickly.
	May I make a point that I have made on previous occasions? Our immigration policies will have to be about the economic needs of Scotland as the host country and the UK in general, but asylum policy must never be about that. Asylum policy has to be about whether an individual has a well-founded fear of persecution and we must make that judgment, and make it quickly. If the person meets the criteria, we will welcome them and integrate them into Scottish society. If they do not, they will have to return to the country from which they came.

Malcolm Bruce: Does the Minister acknowledge that immigration into Scotland has been very beneficial right across the economy? Does he accept that those who have come in under the skills initiative and who were given the indication that they would have a right to permanent residence after four years, but who are now being told that they will have to wait five years, have effectively been misled? Will he make representations to the Home Office to make sure that those who applied for a four-year time limit will be allowed to qualify for it?

David Cairns: I do not know the answer to the right hon. Gentleman's question, but I will certainly look into it on his behalf.
	The right hon. Gentleman makes a very serious point. While we welcome immigrants to Scotland, we have the right to specify the particular skills that we wish to come to the UK in general. That is what the managed migration policy and a points-based migration policy are about, so that we can have an independent body that recommends what the skills needs of the UK are and then respond to that. I will get back to him on the particular point he mentions.

Scottish Airports (Security)

Brian H Donohoe: What discussions he has had with other Government Departments about the security of Scottish airports.

Douglas Alexander: I have regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on a range of matters.

Brian H Donohoe: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer, but does he accept that there is a need for an assessment to be made following the new regulations that seem to be in force across airports in Scotland? As part of that assessment, will he look at the position at Prestwick, which seems to have a far more efficient service than those that operate in other airports in Scotland?

Douglas Alexander: I assure my hon. Friend that we keep the security regime at all the UK's airports under constant review. It is determined on the basis of level of national threat, and clearly there have been changes both to the threat level and to the security regime implemented at our airports since the events of 10 August. However, it would be remiss of me both in relation to Prestwick and the operation of other major airports, including Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, not to take the opportunity to place on record my personal gratitude as Transport Secretary for the work that was done in Scottish airports during August. It is significant that the level of performance not just at Prestwick, but at other Scottish airports, was outstanding in what were very demanding circumstances.

Danny Alexander: When the right hon. Gentleman is having these discussions, will he make sure that his colleagues are aware of the excellent work done by the staff and management at Inverness airport, not just in security, but in developing new routes and services that are bringing substantial benefits to the economy of the highlands and islands?

Douglas Alexander: I am not quite sure with whom I am due to be having conversations—perhaps with myself. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I am fully aware of the level of service that was provided at Inverness, as well as at other airports. I know that he has been pursuing the matter of the route development out of Inverness airport for some time and that he continues to raise it with the Government.

Jim Sheridan: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to congratulate the management and staff at all UK airports—particularly those at Glasgow airport—on their work during the recent security threat. Will he also welcome the recent announcement by BAA of the significant investment at Glasgow airport, which will enhance the security at that airport and also make it easily accessible for people to travel from?

Douglas Alexander: As a regular traveller through Glasgow airport, I am fully aware of the outstanding service that was provided, although the support for the new security regime has not been universal. When I was travelling with my four-year-old son a couple of weeks back, he had to take off his wellington boots at the security comb. He asked, "Why do I have to take off my wellies?" and the security guard replied, "Because your dad's making everybody take off their wellingtons."  [Laughter. ] Notwithstanding that one rather sceptical voice, I am happy to place on the record my admiration of the staff and management at Glasgow airport.

Devolution

Anne McIntosh: What recent devolution issues the Advocate-General has considered.

David Cairns: Since 4 July, 161 devolution issues have been intimated to the Advocate-General. Of these, 102 related to civil proceedings and 59 related to criminal proceedings.

Anne McIntosh: I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he join me in congratulating the new Lord Advocate on her appointment? Will he also confirm whether the Advocate-General was consulted on that appointment and whether there are plans to distinguish the office of chief legal adviser to the Cabinet in Scotland on Scottish legal affairs from that of chief prosecutor?

David Cairns: I am very happy to join the hon. Lady in welcoming the new Lord Advocate, who is the first ever woman to hold that post. The daughter of a coal merchant from Govan has risen to the top of the legal and political establishment in Scotland. That is a great tribute to her talents and abilities. As the hon. Lady knows, the role of the Lord Advocate as head of prosecutions is enshrined in the Scotland Act 1998. The independence as such is enshrined in that Act. Other arrangements, such as whether the Lord Advocate is a member of the Cabinet in the Scottish Executive, are matters for the First Minister.

Business Environment

Mark Lazarowicz: What steps the Government are taking to ensure a long-term stable environment for Scottish business.

Douglas Alexander: This Government's strong macro-economic policies have delivered the strongest Scottish labour market in decades, with record levels of employment. The Government's monetary policy framework has delivered the longest period of sustained low and stable inflation since the 1960s.

Mark Lazarowicz: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be aware of recent research that shows that the success of the Nordic countries is, above all, due to their long-term political and economic stability. Does he agree that that is what Scotland needs as well, and will he ensure that he resists the calls of those who would jeopardise tens of thousands of Scottish jobs by plunging us into years of constitutional uncertainty and chaos?

Douglas Alexander: I find myself in full agreement with the hon. Gentleman and I pray in support not simply the research carried out by the Government, but the most recent headlines in Scotland. Only yesterday, on 9 October,  The Scotsman led with the headline:
	"Scottish output growth fastest in 6 years".
	 The Herald led with the headline: "Scotland's economy going strong". Of particular significance in that story was a quote from Andrew Wilson, the deputy chief economist of the Royal Bank of Scotland, who said:
	"Solid result. Good news for manufacturers generally."
	Clearly, the consensus that the Scottish economy is strong and strengthening extends even to those who previously belonged to other parties.

Philip Hollobone: What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the relative economic success of the Republic of Ireland, with its low corporate tax rates? Is that not a lesson that the Scottish economy would find hugely advantageous—if corporate tax rates in Scotland were cut to the level of those in the Republic of Ireland?

Douglas Alexander: The hon. Gentleman may have forgotten that corporation tax has already been cut by this Government. His point about Ireland has to be taken somewhat cautiously. If we look, for example, at the competitiveness of western Europe in computing and IT, there was a time over the past 20 years when we could secure what is inherently mobile international capital investment by having reduced rates of corporation tax. That level of investment in Ireland preceded the rise of not just China, but India, Vietnam and other economies in the far east. The economic restructuring that has taken place in recent years suggests that there is no single silver magic bullet. The determination to provide the economic stability that we have provided, together with education and training, also has a key role to play.

Economic Policy

Tom Clarke: When he next expects to meet the Scottish Trades Union Congress to discuss economic policy in Scotland.

Douglas Alexander: I regularly meet representatives of the Scottish Trades Union Congress.

Tom Clarke: In my right hon. Friend's discussions with the STUC, has he been able to offer it reassurance about his support for the manufacturing sector, which is so important for the Scottish economy?

Douglas Alexander: Yes, just a few weeks ago I met with the STUC general council and we discussed at length the interests of Scottish manufacturing. Immediately preceding that meeting, I had held discussions with Scottish Engineering, and it again placed on record its determination to continue to support modern manufacturing strength for Scotland.

COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The Secretary of State was asked—

Decent Homes

David Anderson: What progress has been made towards meeting the decent homes standard in the north-east of England; and if she will make a statement.

Ruth Kelly: In the past four years, 57,000 homes in the north-east have been brought up to decent homes standards, with 48,000 new kitchens, 31,000 new bathrooms and 48,000 new central heating systems having been installed.

David Anderson: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Can she advise the House whether the principles enshrined in composite 10 at the recent Labour party conference will be used to ensure that the Government reach their aim of having decent homes for all, including those tenants and councils who rejected private finance initiatives, arm's length management organisations and stock transfers?

Ruth Kelly: I am aware of my hon. Friend's continued interest in these matters, and I respect his contribution to the debate on them. However, he knows, as do other Members who are present, that we have a pledge to try to meet the ambitions, right across the country, of every tenant in council or social housing to have a home of a decent standard. If we were to go down the route of not levering in the money from the private sector that we could through housing associations, that could cost the Exchequer an extra £12 billion. That is £12 billion that we could spend on more kitchens and more central heating—on homes of a decent standard—and my hon. Friend and other Members should agree that that money could be better spent.

Alan Beith: Does the Secretary of State realise that many people in the north-east will not have a chance of having a decent home if the regional housing board continues with policies, done at the behest of her Department, to restrict the number of houses built in areas such as Alnwick and Berwick to about 60 a year, which will mean that there is no social housing and still higher prices for the remaining houses in the private sector?

Ruth Kelly: The right hon. Gentleman will know that we have an ambition to build more than 200,000 extra homes a year by 2016. In order to achieve our ambition, and to meet the housing aspirations of people throughout our country, we need to have a system in place that will provide the extra supply that we need—more homes in every region. Within that general framework, we aim to give as much flexibility as we can for local authorities to build on brownfield land rather than greenfield land and to decide the appropriate places where homes can be built. But the bottom line is that we must have extra homes if people's housing aspirations are to be met.

Natascha Engel: On meeting the decent homes standards, will the Secretary of State tell us when she will announce the successful bids in round 6 of the ALMO—arm's length management organisation—programme?

Ruth Kelly: I can tell my hon. Friend that we will announce the extra money very shortly, and I hope that many more millions of people will be able to benefit from the modern kitchens, central heating and new bathrooms that that money will buy.

Alistair Burt: Further to the matter of the 200,000 new homes, the question is: where? Is it not the case that the drive towards decent homes in the north-east, and in the north generally, is being undermined by a stealthy transference of regeneration funding to the south of England? Why has English Partnerships' spending in the south risen sevenfold, to some 59 per cent. of its budget, which is a massive swing away from its previous funding pattern? Is that not further evidence that commitment to reviving cities in the north is taking second place to the dash for concrete in the south?

Ruth Kelly: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman at all. If he were serious about providing the extra homes that people need and ensuring that they are of a sufficiently decent quality and standard for them to live in, he would back our housing market renewal pathfinders, which are regenerating communities throughout the north and giving people a decent place to live. But ultimately, we need the extra homes for people to live in if we are to meet their housing aspirations. Young couples today find it difficult to take their first step on to the housing ladder. If we are to stabilise the house price affordability ratio, we need to deliver 200,000 more homes, and we need those homes in the places where people want to live.

Flood Plains (Building)

Anne McIntosh: What plans she has to revise planning guidelines for building on flood plains; and if she will make a statement.

Angela Smith: We expect to publish a new planning policy statement 25 later this year to strengthen and clarify planning policy on development and flood risk.

Anne McIntosh: As part of the revised guidelines, will the Minister give the House a commitment this afternoon that the question will be dealt with of insurance cover for houses on functional flood plains that are prone to flooding? Thirsk, particularly Finkle street, has been flooded twice in less than five years, and a particular business and a number of residents have been told that there is simply no insurance cover available. Will the Minister plug that loophole with the guidelines?  [Interruption.]

Angela Smith: I do not think that the hon. Lady recognised the pun that she made, but it was well appreciated on the Labour Benches. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, Baroness Andrews, is looking at this matter, which will be discussed, and I can assure the hon. Lady that her comments will be drawn to my hon. Friend's attention.

Jim Dobbin: Recently, Heywood experienced the equivalent of one month's rain in a few hours, and it was the second serious flooding episode that the town has had. Does my hon. Friend accept that local planning authorities need to enforce stricter regulation of new housing developments that are trying to link into existing drainage networks, which cannot carry the capacity? That is part of the problem.

Angela Smith: It is clear that planning policy guidance 25 has had quite an impact, and according to the Association of British Insurers it has proved very relevant when looking at development. The new statement will strengthen the current guidance, but I should point out that there is a statutory duty to consult the Environment Agency on all new developments, and that will inform any planning authority's decision.

Laurence Robertson: May I draw the Minister's attention to the fact that two rivers meet in my constituency, and that the flood problem goes much further than that? The situation is not helped by the fact that my constituency is constantly being asked to take more and more houses; indeed, the problem has been made even worse by the regional spatial strategy proposal to build thousands more. That will not help the area, which is a totally inappropriate place for those houses to be built; it will be very environmentally damaging. Will the Minister go back to Labour's pre-election pledge to end the predict-provide approach to house building?

Angela Smith: I sometimes wonder about Conservative policy. The Conservatives share in our demand for, and recognition of the need for, more housing, but wherever they are, they say no to more housing. We have to ensure that local planning authorities have all —[Interruption.] Hon. Members may not want to listen, and choose instead to go on a party political rant, but there is an important point to be made about the hon. Gentleman's comments on flooding. It is important that local authorities have all the relevant information from the Environment Agency, which is now a statutory consultee, when looking at the development of a particular area. We believe that PPG25 is good, and we have strengthened and clarified it through planning policy statement 25. That addresses the questions, and the hon. Gentleman cannot just say no to any housing anywhere.

Alan Simpson: When the German Government looked at exactly the same problem of developments on flood plains and developments that put under pressure the existing drainage system's capacity, they came to a very specific conclusion: that they needed to change planning and building regulations so that all new developments were required to incorporate rainwater collection and water recycling in the structure of the development. Will the Minister consider doing exactly the same in the UK?

Angela Smith: It might help if I refer my hon. Friend to our plans to issue a new planning policy statement on climate change before Christmas. Such matters are being discussed to determine whether they can be addressed through building regulations and planning policy.

Planning Regulations

Daniel Kawczynski: What representations her Department has received on planning regulations in the last 12 months.

Yvette Cooper: The Department receives many representations on planning regulations and proposals to change them.

Daniel Kawczynski: I thank the Minister for that response. She realises that it is extremely important for her Department to deal with investigations into planning regulations quickly. In the past, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister sat on such cases for a great deal of time, and in the case of the livestock market in Shrewsbury, the cost to local council tax payers is £2 million in lost revenue. Will she do everything possible to speed up the adjudication on the proposed transfer of Darwin house to our council because it wishes to build a Darwin museum in Shrewsbury?

Yvette Cooper: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that I cannot comment on individual cases and that there are restrictions on what we are able to say about planning cases that are going through the system. However, I can tell him that we are committed to passing cases through the system as swiftly as possible. We have introduced much tighter deadlines on both ministerial planning cases and the time taken for planning cases to go through appeal. I hope that that will assist his case.

Lindsay Hoyle: I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that people feel that there is real injustice in planning inquiries and decisions. Applicants always have a right of appeal, but objectors have no right of appeal. When will she consider changing the regulations so that there is fairness on both sides?

Yvette Cooper: Ultimately, we think that planning decisions need to be taken initially by local authorities, which are the democratic representatives of local communities. A right of appeal is built into the planning system because people have a right to appeal about how their own land should be used. However, we should also recognise that we should not have additional layers in the planning system that could cause planning decisions to drag on indefinitely and not provide proper certainty on, and democratic accountability for, decisions that are taken.

John Redwood: Why do not the Minister and the Government have more confidence in the decisions of local authorities? We elect them and they speak for their local communities, so why can they not make decisions about where buildings should go?

Yvette Cooper: As the right hon. Gentleman will be aware, local authorities draw up their local plans. They hold consultations with their local communities and have to take decisions on planning applications that come forward. There will always be cases that have an impact that goes much wider than individual local authorities, and it is right that they should be considered through call-in processes or other processes. I have to say to Conservative Members that often what lies behind their anguish about local decisions is the fact that there is a local decision that they do not like because they do not want new homes to be built in their areas.

Keith Vaz: I appreciate the efforts that the Government have made, but the fact remains that it takes four months to conclude a written appeal and almost a year to conclude an oral appeal. Those are inordinate lengths of time. Would not one way of dealing with the situation be not to create additional layers, which the Minister has quite rightly turned her face against, but to appoint more planning inspectors so that such cases can be dealt with much more quickly?

Yvette Cooper: My right hon. Friend makes an important point. We have tried to increase the number of cases that go through the written procedure because that process can be much swifter for all concerned. We have also invested additional resources in the planning inspectorate, which is dealing with increasing numbers of appeals. Just as there are increasing numbers of planning applications, there are increasing numbers of appeals on planning applications, which obviously increases the inspectorate's work load. We have already put in train a programme of work that is reducing the time taken by planning appeals on housing so that decisions can be taken much more swiftly.

Andrew Stunell: Does the Minister recognise that a crisis of housing affordability is affecting hundreds of thousands of families throughout the country? Will she take steps to amend planning policy guidance note 3 to empower local authorities to place a duty on developers to pay more attention to the affordability of the housing that they build and less to the profit margin that they will receive from it?

Yvette Cooper: I agree that we need to do more to address the affordability pressures that are faced, especially by first-time buyers throughout the country. As a result, we need to build more homes. More than 200,000 new households are being formed each year, largely as a result of more people living alone, but we are building only about 160,000 new homes a year, which is unsustainable. The hon. Gentleman is right that we need to reform the planning policy guidance on housing. We have already published a draft for consultation, and we will publish a revised version later in the year to support more housing, including not only more shared ownership and affordable housing, but more market housing.

Clive Betts: Will my right hon. Friend tell the House what representations she has had from the major supermarket chains—or, indeed, the Treasury—in respect of the possible changes to and relaxation of PPG6? Does she agree that the changes made by the previous Government, including the introduction of the sequential test, have been an important factor in assisting the regeneration of our town and city centres, and that if the guidance were to be relaxed to allow more out-of-town shopping development, it could have a serious impact on our city centres?

Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend is right to say that planning policy guidance on town centres has had a big impact on city and town centre regeneration. There has been a lot more investment and development in town centres, and in the centres of our big cities, such as Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds—

Clive Betts: And Sheffield.

Yvette Cooper: And Sheffield, of course—particularly Sheffield. In those cities we are seeing a huge urban renaissance as a result of the guidance. We have no proposals to change PPG6. I have not had any representations from supermarkets; I do not know whether there are any in the Department, but the matter has not been raised with me personally.

Caroline Spelman: It is a fact that since her appointment the new Secretary of State has overruled an average of one in five decisions made by her own planning inspectorate, and just now we heard what sounded like an attack by the Minister for Housing and Planning on the Secretary of State's nimbyism. If she has so little faith in the planning system, why should anyone else?

Yvette Cooper: Planning inspectors make representations to Ministers on a small number of cases, and Ministers take decisions based on the evidence that is put to them. It is right that they do so, and it is right that they should be democratically accountable for the decisions they take. We need more new homes across this country, but we also need to ensure that they are of higher quality and are built to good design standards in communities that are sustainable. We shall continue to take those decisions.

Referendum Questions

Joan Walley: If she will meet Stoke-on-Trent city council to discuss the provisions under section 45(8) of the Local Government Act 2000 relating to questions which may be asked in a referendum.

Phil Woolas: We will shortly set out our approach for future local governance in the forthcoming local government White Paper. In the light of those proposals, I shall, of course, be happy to work with Stoke-on-Trent city council on the necessary provisions.

Joan Walley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply and for the interest that he takes in Stoke-on-Trent. As he well knows, we in Stoke-on-Trent have a system whereby the council is run by a council manager and an elected mayor. My concern is that Stoke-on-Trent city council has asked to go ahead with a referendum, pending the enactment of the legislation as a result of regulations. We urgently need the regulations under the 2000 Act to be introduced. Will my hon. Friend meet Stoke-on-Trent council to discuss how the matter can be resolved?

Phil Woolas: I commend my hon. Friend on her vigilance on this matter—indeed, she wrote to me on 31 July raising a similar point, and she has made several other representations. My answer to her question is, yes, of course I shall do so. It is important, not only for the governance of Stoke but for the future prosperity of that fine city, that we get the arrangements right. That is why the matter is receiving my individual attention.

Low-cost Housing

Ian Austin: What progress has been made towards the development of the £60,000 home; and if she will make a statement.

Adrian Bailey: If she will make a statement on the progress towards the development of the £60,000 home.

Kerry McCarthy: When homes built under the £60,000 home initiative will be available for purchase.

Ruth Kelly: The design for manufacture competition is making excellent progress. Preferred developers have been selected on all 10 sites in the competition, and construction work is now under way on four. We anticipate that the first show home will be completed by November.

Ian Austin: We have 1 million more homeowners in Britain since 1997, which is to be welcomed, but I regularly meet people in Dudley who are working hard but struggling to make ends meet on average incomes or in low-paid jobs, some of whom are living at home with their parents. They are desperate to buy a home of their own. They need a Government who are on their side, helping them to get on the housing ladder, which is why the expansion of the programme that my right hon. Friend has outlined today is so important. When does she think that people in my constituency will be able to buy a home at a lower cost?

Ruth Kelly: I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He is absolutely right that there is a real need, for young couples in particular, to be able to gain access to the housing market. The £60,000 house competition was designed to reduce and keep a lid on construction costs while driving up quality standards, particularly for smaller, two-bedroom houses. That should generate a cultural change across the industry and keep prices down while delivering higher standards. I hope that my hon. Friend's constituents will benefit not only from that change in the industry, but from the other low-cost home ownership schemes that the Government are developing. He will know that we aim to help more than 100,000 households over the next few years, in the run up to 2010, with specific help through low-cost home ownership schemes.

Adrian Bailey: I thank my right hon. Friend for her comments, but I understand that the £60,000 relates to construction costs, and that there will be a variation in prices according to local housing market conditions. Can she reassure me that, even taking those local adjustments into account, the houses will still be affordable to people in the market who cannot get on the housing ladder?

Ruth Kelly: We are certainly encouraging all developers to think about how they can reduce construction costs and drive up quality. Of the 1,000-odd houses that will be built through that type of competition, some will go on the market for £60,000 or thereabouts. People will have access to them through the shared equity scheme, and they will be able to buy a share of the house for such a price. However, it is important to point out that that will not be the only way for people to get their foot on the housing ladder. There are other Government policies designed specifically to help first-time buyers, and to enable people to get a foot on the housing ladder, including, for example, the homebuy scheme, which was recently re-launched by the Government. Over the next few years, tens of thousands of couples will be able to benefit from that scheme.

Kerry McCarthy: I am enthused by what I have seen of the prototype £60,000 homes. They address some of the problems that I have experienced with planning applications for new housing developments in my constituency, which all too often are poorly designed, lack ambition in terms of environmental sustainability, and are submitted with minimal public consultation. When will the "How to Win at Housebuilding" toolkit for local authorities and other social housing providers be introduced, so that they can be given better guidance on how to tackle some of those issues?

Ruth Kelly: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When the competition was launched by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, there was huge scepticism about whether it was possible to design a spacious, high-quality, eco-friendly house with a construction cost of £60,000, but he showed that that was possible. Now, we are building eco-homes that have the "lifetime homes" standard and are very spacious. We hope that, through the competition, local authorities can hold their own competitions, asking developers to build houses to the same design standards. I hope that that toolkit for local authorities will be available before Christmas.

Michael Gove: The Secretary of State referred to her Government's low-cost home ownership schemes, and in particular the homebuy scheme. Can she explain why the grand total of homes sold under the social homebuy scheme, according to her parliamentary answer in  Hansard on 4 September 2006, is just one?

Ruth Kelly: I think that the hon. Gentleman will find that it is actually more than one—

Michael Gove: It is just one.

Ruth Kelly: I accept that we need to do far more —[ Interruption. ] We need to build more social homes. I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman confirmed that he will match our real-terms spending commitment to build more social houses. We need to examine, together with registered social landlords and housing associations, why more people are not taking up the option of a social homebuy scheme, and we are determined to make the scheme attractive to people who want to buy a part of their social home. Over the next few months, and in the run-up to the pre-Budget report and beyond, we will develop a shared equity package that will make the scheme much more attractive, both to registered social landlords and to tenants who may want to make use of the scheme. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need to do more. I would be grateful if he confirmed that he will match our spending pledges.

Adrian Sanders: This is laudable, but there are such disparities in land values that it becomes a drop in the ocean. When will the Government do something about taxing land values to even up the opportunities to build the houses that meet local housing needs?

Ruth Kelly: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is a strong theoretical abstract tax argument, because taxing land values is a decent way of raising money in a way that is fair to lots of people. He will know, too, that there is a priority and an imperative from Government to have infrastructure development which supports housing in all its forms so that we do not build housing in isolation from thinking about economic prosperity and links to our towns and cities. That is why the Department for Communities and Local Government, together with the Treasury, is working to develop a planning gain supplement that will be based on land values and on the planning permission associated with that, so that we can use some of this resource to support the necessary infrastructure needs.

John Gummer: Does the right hon. Lady agree that affordability concerns not only the purchase price but running the house afterwards? How many of the £60,000 houses meet the target of a 40 per cent. reduction in energy use and a 40 per cent. reduction in water use; and how much reduction is there overall if, as I believe, none of them meets that target?

Ruth Kelly: The environmental standards that have applied during the two years that this competition has been running have increased throughout that time. The houses that are being built now are of a higher standard than those that were built two years ago, and we are constantly raising the bar. The next phase of the design for manufacture competition will specifically ask bidders and developers to come forward with plans not only for homes that meet the 40 per cent. reduction but for carbon-neutral homes. Our ambition is that, through the way in which homes are built and developers think about constructing them, homes will become much more eco-friendly so that we can meet our carbon reduction emissions targets. However, we will of course continue to do more.

Brownfield Sites (Planning)

Andrew MacKay: What recent representations she has received on the definition of brownfield sites in planning guidance.

Yvette Cooper: The Department has received a range of representations as part of the consultation on the new planning policy statement 3, which was published in draft last year.

Andrew MacKay: During the Commons debate in the summer, the Minister was sympathetic when many of us said that our constituents believe that brownfield sites should be ex-commercial sites, not the gardens of houses and bungalows, which when built on as so-called brownfield sites completely change the nature of residential areas. In the light of her sympathetic comments, what progress has she made in redefining brownfield sites?

Yvette Cooper: As we said during the debate, we need to build more houses across the country. We also need safeguards against inappropriate development. Many councils have already used those, but we are already strengthening them as part of the draft policy statement that was published last year. We must recognise that, as the hon. Gentleman will know, the definition of brownfield land was introduced in the mid 1980s. I quote:
	"It is difficult to imagine how urban gardens could have been separated out in terms of available technology and cost."
	It talks about it being a statistical definition. That quote is from the hon. Gentleman's party's campaign document, so it is perhaps inappropriate for him to call for us to change the statistical definition.

Phyllis Starkey: Development on brownfield sites is often more difficult because of the former uses of those sites. May I draw the Minister's attention to the excellent development occurring in my constituency at Warburton on the old railway engineering works, where the historic buildings are being conserved? A difficult site with only one access has been developed and 300 houses have been provided at a high environmental standard. Will my hon. Friend ensure that those lessons are spread?

Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend is right. There are some excellent examples of development on brownfield land to high environmental standards but also with affordable housing. English Partnerships often plays a leading role in working with local authorities to bring former industrial and commercial sites back into use so that we can build new homes for the future.

Council Houses

Bob Russell: How many council houses have been built since 1997.

Yvette Cooper: Since 1997, about 235,000 new social homes have been provided, funded by the Government and by planning gain. The majority have been built by housing associations.

Bob Russell: The Minister has not answered my question, which related to council houses. Will she confirm that, after nine years of a Labour Government, only about 4,000 council houses have been built? Even the Thatcher Government built 350,000 council houses. Why are this Labour Government so hostile towards council housing? Why will they not follow the Labour party's conference policy to restore the building of council houses?

Yvette Cooper: Let us be clear: local councils can build houses. They can use their own resources, prudential borrowing, private finance initiative schemes and section 106 agreements. We provide most of the Government funding for new social housing through housing associations because they can lever in an extra 40 per cent. of borrowing, which means that they can build 40 per cent. more homes with the same amount of money. That represents better value for the extra money that we put in. We are also looking at ways of giving councils more flexibility to carry out more building. In regard to the hon. Gentleman's comparison with the early 1990s, construction and land costs were lower at that time. However, that was because the Tory Government of the time had pushed the housing market into a deep and damaging recession. I do not think that that is a housing policy worth returning to.

North Korea Nuclear Test

William Hague: (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to make a full statement on the implications of and proposed response to North Korea's first test of a nuclear device.

Margaret Beckett: On 9 October, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Foreign Ministry announced that it had conducted an underground nuclear test at 02.36 United Kingdom time. That an explosion of sufficient magnitude occurred is not in question, but the exact nature of the explosion has not yet been independently verified by the identification of radioactive particles. However, given North Korea's stated intention last week to conduct such a test, the international community is proceeding on the basis that this was indeed a nuclear test, as the DPRK has said.
	The world has been united in its condemnation of North Korea's action, which was carried out in direct defiance of the will of the international community. Comments made by world leaders, nuclear experts and international organisations have highlighted North Korea's isolation. North Korea's nuclear test jeopardises regional stability in north-east Asia and poses a clear threat to international peace and security. It contravenes North Korea's commitments under the non-proliferation treaty, breaches the 1991 joint declaration of South Korea and North Korea on the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, and ignores United Nations Security Council resolution 1695.
	The Security Council is continuing its discussions today on how to respond to the North Korean nuclear test. As I have said, the international community has been unanimous in its condemnation of the DPRK's actions. The United Kingdom will be pushing for a robust response, given the clear threat posed to international peace and security by the test. The Security Council is considering a sanctions package covering a range of measures, including measures designed to impact on the areas of most immediate concern to the international community: the DPRK's nuclear and missile capabilities.
	Immediately following the test, the Prime Minister and I both issued statements making it clear that North Korea's actions were highly irresponsible and provocative. We have also called the DPRK's ambassador in London to the Foreign Office to make clear our views. Since then, I have discussed the situation with various Foreign Ministers, including the Chinese Foreign Minister Li, the Japanese Foreign Minister Aso and the Secretary of State of the United States, Condoleezza Rice. Those contacts are continuing, and will continue in the hours and days ahead.

William Hague: May I express to the Foreign Secretary the strong support of the Opposition for the declared policy of the Government to seek a robust response under chapter VII of the United Nations charter, including the imposition of legally binding sanctions? Is it not worth reminding the House and the nation of the generous offers made to North Korea during the six-party talks, including on power generation and security guarantees?
	I have three broad questions for the Foreign Secretary. The first is on sanctions. Last night, the United States proposed sanctions that would include a trade ban on military and luxury items, the power to inspect all cargo entering or leaving North Korea, and freezing assets connected with its weapons programmes. Japan appears to have proposed, in addition, that North Korean ships and planes should be banned from foreign ports and airports. Will the Foreign Secretary tell the House whether the Government support all those proposals, or whether there are any that they do not support? Will the Government be calling for any further measures not mentioned by the United States and Japan? Can she say when she expects the Security Council to reach a decision? If a decision is made under Chapter VII and ignored by North Korea, does she expect further steps to follow?
	The second set of questions concerns proliferation. Given that we must bear in mind the fact that this is a country that has never developed a weapons system that it has not eventually sold to the highest bidder, what is the Foreign Secretary's assessment of the danger that nuclear technology originating from North Korea could find its way into the hands of transnational terrorists, or states supporting them? What assessment has been made of North Korea's ability to arm its missiles with a nuclear warhead, and to which of its missiles would that apply? Does the Foreign Secretary agree that that means we must expand the proliferation security initiative with the aim of identifying and stopping sources of nuclear trafficking? Would the sanctions being proposed at the United Nations change in any way the powers to search ships under the initiative? How will the efforts to intercept illicit cargoes from North Korea be made more effective?
	The third set of questions concerns the unity of the Security Council. There is clearly a growing perception in the world that the price of stealing one's way into the nuclear club is bearable. That is a perception that we cannot afford to allow to continue. Is it not the case that the Security Council members who have been united in their condemnation of North Korea must now be united in their actions? Does the Foreign Secretary agree that it is of the utmost importance to preserve the unity of the UN in the coming days—I am sure that she does—but that if sanctions are to be effective, they will obviously require the full support of North Korea's neighbours? Can she say any more about any assurances that she has received during her discussions with the Chinese Foreign Minister about China's approach to the issue? What contacts has she had with her counterparts in Russia and South Korea regarding sanctions, and has this any implications for South Korea's development of the industrial complex at Kaesong, over the North Korean border?
	This latest development is clearly part of an alarming trend towards nuclear proliferation, which we must do everything possible to halt. While our immediate goal must be to confront and contain North Korea and oblige it to return to its obligations and negotiations, must we not now commit ourselves to reviving and strengthening the non-proliferation treaty as a whole, and dealing resolutely with those such as North Korea and Iran that attempt to breach it?

Margaret Beckett: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support. He has asked me a great many questions, which I shall do my best to deal with as briefly as I can.
	The proposals made by the United States and Japan are under consideration as we speak: the Security Council has just begun its meeting. For our part, we are content to see any and all of the measures presented so far on the table. We think it extremely wise to have a full range of measures for consideration in the Security Council, so that people can assess them and decide whether they wish to adopt all or some of them, but also so that it is clear what range of measures is potentially available to the Security Council on this or, indeed, any future occasion.
	The right hon. Gentleman asked me what would happen if North Korea ignored an expressed decision by the Security Council. That is exactly why I think it right to look at the full range of measures. It is not at all clear yet what decision the Security Council will make. As the right hon. Gentleman may have heard—it has been commented on in the news media—the Security Council meeting yesterday was extremely brief. That was partly because some members did not have instructions from their domestic Governments, but it is thought that there is no question about the opposition to what North Korea is doing. However, what the detail of people's willingness to take action in the immediate future will be is not yet clear.
	The right hon. Gentleman raised, quite correctly, the issue of proliferation. That is exactly why the international community as a whole is so alarmed about this development. It is not just the issue of North Korea itself; it is the fact that, as the right hon. Gentleman said, it has shown a propensity to distribute weapons in the past.
	We are not in a position to answer some of the detailed questions that the right hon. Gentleman asked about arming missiles and so forth, not least because not enough is yet known about the nature and weight, for example, of a potential device. However, he is right to stress both the need for unity in the international community—which we will try to sustain—and the need to look again at the issue of the non-proliferation treaty in this light.
	Conversations that I have had with the South Korean Foreign Minister indicate that that country is consulting widely and in great depth about the exact course of action that it will pursue. I cannot, therefore, answer the right hon. Gentleman's specific question yet, but I am sure that it is one of the issues that South Korea will be considering, given the breadth of the process that it is undertaking.

Gavin Strang: I recognise that this is one of those occasions when the whole House will applaud the actions that my right hon. Friend has taken and will strongly support the efforts being made in the Security Council to secure effective additional chapter VII sanctions, involving, as the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) said, the authority to inspect all cargo going into and out of North Korea. Does she agree that China, as the main superpower, has a real responsibility to support sanctions for the benefits of its own people and the wider world and to make sure that they are effective?

Margaret Beckett: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. It is clear from the conversation that I had with the Chinese Foreign Minister that the Government of China are, as he would expect, gravely concerned. It is also clear that the Government of China are very mindful of the implications for the neighbourhood of any steps that might be taken, and are anxious, as are we all, not to do anything to make the situation worse. Balancing these issues is not likely to be easy, which is one of the reasons why I cannot answer the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) as to when the Security Council might come to a decision. At this moment it is too early to tell.

Michael Moore: We join the unanimity across the House in condemning the nuclear test by North Korea. It is a dangerous development, not just for the region but for the world as a whole. We also firmly support the efforts in the Security Council to drive through tough sanctions against the regime. We join with others on both sides of the House in stressing the need for China and Russia to recognise their responsibilities and to support these measures. However, does the Foreign Secretary recognise that agreement will be much harder to achieve while there is even the prospect of military action by the United States, which would be absolutely catastrophic? Does she agree with the former United States Senator Sam Nunn, who said that this appalling situation represents a massive failure of United States—and, by extension, British—foreign policy, which has been disastrously sidetracked in Iraq while failing to deal with the terrible prospect of nuclear weapons in North Korea?

Margaret Beckett: No, I do not agree that any stance taken up to now has in some way encouraged North Korea. It is clear that this is a course of action that North Korea has been pursuing, for its own mysterious reasons, for a long time. I do not speak in this House for the foreign policy of the United States, and I am not entirely sure that the hon. Gentleman's quotation of Senator Nunn was 100 per cent. accurate. But I reject the notion that this is in some way a result of neglect or a foreign policy failure by this Government, the Government of the United States or anyone in the international community. This is a North Korean failure—home-grown.

Doug Henderson: I welcome the initiatives that my right hon. Friend has taken, particularly her contact with the Chinese Government. Does she agree that if the purpose of UN sanctions is movement from North Korea and not its isolation, it is essential that we have China on board in any UN decision? Will she pursue that course of action?

Margaret Beckett: I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend, who is exactly right. The purpose of sanctions being taken against North Korea is to get them to return to the six-party talks and abandon their course of action, and not in some way to punish them for what they have done.

Malcolm Rifkind: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that a failure by the Security Council to impose serious sanctions would send a green light to Iran, suggesting that it could proceed with impunity with its aspirations for nuclear weapons? Does the Secretary of State accept that if the North Korean regime is likely to collapse some time over the next few years, it might be better if it collapsed sooner rather than later, before it could threaten its neighbours with nuclear weapons? Does not this point to very effective sanctions, including oil sanctions, being imposed at this stage?

Margaret Beckett: The right hon. and learned Gentleman makes a valid point. As I said to his right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks, the international community will look at the full range of sanctions that are available. I would certainly be reluctant to agree with any proposition that there was anything to encourage the Government of Iran, which I believe has uniquely supported and encouraged North Korea down a similar route. We strongly take the view that this should not be viewed as a green light to anyone, and that the international community must act with resolve. However, it is important to preserve not only that resolve, but international unity.

Harry Cohen: North Korea is patently unwise to starve its people for this nuclear weapon, which actually puts the country more at risk rather than less. However, may I say to my right hon. Friend that she has a bit of a blind spot if she does not believe that President Bush's "axis of evil" speech and the subsequent war against Iraq did anything to encourage North Korea to adopt this course of action? May I also say that although I do not object to sanctions, I am opposed to chapter VII actions that could lead on to military action? Cannot my right hon. Friend see that that would only make matters worse?

Margaret Beckett: I am afraid that my hon. Friend is mistaken in thinking that all this followed on from or was exacerbated by anything that President Bush or anyone else in the international community has said. If I may say so, I believe that it is something of a blind spot when people fail to recognise that this is a road down which North Korea has been treading, for reasons of its own, for a very long time. I understand my hon. Friend's concern about chapter VII, but the wording refers to a threat to "international peace and security" and I cannot think of a clearer threat to international peace and security than the one that we have just seen.

Edward Davey: Will the Foreign Secretary send the strongest possible message of support to the South Korean Government and President Roh? I have the honour of representing the largest Korean community in the UK, and my constituents are desperate to know that the British Government will stand firm with the South Korean Government. Will the right hon. Lady tell President Roh that the UK Government—unlike some people in Washington—in no way consider his sunshine policy of engagement with North Korea to have been at fault?

Margaret Beckett: We very much support the Government of South Korea and fully sympathise with the terrible anxiety that they are feeling. I am sure that it will encourage the hon. Gentleman's constituents to know that part of the action that the South Korean Government are presently undertaking is, as I said to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, to consult on the widest possible basis and to draw all parties and all former presidents into talks in order to achieve a complete national consensus on how best to deal with what amounts to a very grave threat to South Korea in particular, as well as to others in the neighbourhood.

Paul Flynn: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there have been two American policies on North Korea? The first, pursued by Madeleine Albright and President Clinton, was one of rapprochement. It included the denuclearisation of the peninsula, and was very successful. Following that came the very damaging policies of President Bush, which wrecked the policies of rapprochement and increased the tension and fears, however ill founded, of North Koreans. It is right that our policies should be robust, but should not they also be intelligent and independent?

Margaret Beckett: I hear what my hon. Friend says, but I have to say that although there may be days when people in the House feel that it is time to have a go at the United States, this is not one of them. If we want to have a go at anybody, let us have a go at North Korea. This is North Korea's policy, and that country is pursuing it wantonly. As everyone in the House well knows, in the process of spending on its nuclear weapons programme, North Korea is effectively persecuting its own people, who are undergoing terrible suffering. That is not something for which we should be seeking to find any kind of excuse or rationale. The example that I would put forward here as relevant to North Korea is that of Libya, which gave up its nuclear weapons—and quite right, too.

Julian Lewis: I was just about to ask whether Libya had any lessons for North Korea, in the way in which Britain and the US have behaved to a country that takes a more enlightened view and changes course. Instead, may I ask whether the role of the A. Q. Khan network in supplying nuclear information to North Korea has, in the view of the Department, brought forward the ability of North Korea to carry out that test at this time?

Margaret Beckett: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman if I stole his thunder, or his line; I recognise his experience on these issues. It is hard to answer the question whether the A. Q. Khan network made an appreciable difference to the time scale of what North Korea has been able to do. I can certainly say that the issue of that network and the supplies that it was putting out lends strength to our argument that this is something in which North Korea has been engaged for a very long time.

Denis MacShane: It was rather shaming to hear that it was the fault of Britain and the United States that the nuclear test took place—the point of view of the Liberal Democrat Front Bench spokesman and some of those on our Back Benches. That really is a new axis of idiocy. We have the big advantage of an embassy in Pyongyang, put in place by the Labour Government in 1998. Will my right hon. Friend pay particular attention to the concerns of Japan and South Korea, which are only a small step away from developing their own nuclear capability unless action is taken against North Korea? May I suggest that the responsible Minister might be dispatched to the three capitals of Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo to report back to the House on these grave developments?

Margaret Beckett: I recognise the point that my right hon. Friend makes about the grave concern felt, especially in South Korea and Japan. I will consider his suggestion, but we may pick up as much in New York about the concerns in those capitals as through visits to them at this point. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks referred to proliferation dangers, one of which is the concern that others in the region will begin to consider their own position. That is something that we must try to avoid at all costs.

William Cash: In relation to the United Nations Security Council and the effectiveness of the UN, does the Foreign Secretary endorse the comments by John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, that this issue would by implication be a test for the UN? Will she give every encouragement to ensure that the UN, in this instance at any rate, acts with both force and unity?

Margaret Beckett: Yes, I accept that this is an issue on which the UN needs to act with unity, but also with strength. That is something that we will try to deliver. Those with many years of experience in such matters have said to me of late that the permanent members of the Security Council are going through a period of what might be described as unusual unity. That is wholly to be welcomed. It is also something to be worked with and strengthened. I may not express matters as ambassador Bolton does, but I share the view that it is important that the UN gets this right.

Andrew Tyrie: In the Government's view, is the six-party talks process suspended or dead?

Margaret Beckett: It would be a grave error to suggest that the six-party talks are dead. Everyone is trying to encourage North Korea back into the six-party talks, because of the belief that that is the best way to address the range of issues that have been raised for those in the neighbourhood.

John Redwood: How long does the Foreign Secretary think that it would take for the sanctions package that she proposes to get North Korea to give up its weapons in a way that we can verify?

Margaret Beckett: We have not yet finalised the sanctions package, so it is not easy to assess how long it might take to have effect. I suspect that North Korea will not lightly relinquish the course of action that it is pursuing, which is why I said to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks that I think it right for the Security Council to discuss a substantial range of measures. It is also something to bear in mind when a decision is made about what measures are adopted now.

Hugh Robertson: During the cold war the nuclear powers agreed a series of memorandums to try to prevent exactly the sort of thing that happened two days ago. Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that all current members of the nuclear club are subject to those memorandums? How does she expect to exert some sort of control over North Korea?

Margaret Beckett: No, I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the confirmation that he seeks. Certainly there are memorandums in existence, although I cannot recall the precise network. There might be a slight misunderstanding here. We are not trying to encourage North Korea to sign memorandums and agree to be of good behaviour; rather, we are trying to encourage it back into a process of denuclearisation of the area—that is, to give up and demolish any missiles or weapons that it has developed.

Greg Hands: I have visited the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It is probably the most repressive regime in the world, but the level of opposition there remains quite strong. That is evident in the number of people fleeing the country; in effect, they are voting with their feet. What efforts have the Government made to support opposition groups, both in the country and outside it? Does the Foreign Secretary support regime change in Pyongyang?

Margaret Beckett: Perhaps this is not the right day to dwell on the issue of regime change, but the Government do what we can in North Korea, through relatively small-scale programmes of assistance and support. If the hon. Gentleman's visit was recent, he may know that the programmes run there by our Department for International Development have been stopped or scaled down because of the difficulty of making sure that they can be monitored properly, given the restrictions on freedom faced by opposition groups, non-governmental organisations and so on. Those restrictions make matters extremely difficult in North Korea, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that we continue to try to build good contacts with people of good will where we can.

Mark Pritchard: Does not the nuclear test in North Korea show the strategic foresight of Japan, Australia and South Korea in developing a ballistic missile defence shield? North Korea already has effective missiles, and is trying to develop ones with a longer range. Is it not time the House had a debate about the use of a ballistic missile defence shield, as well as about the necessary diplomacy and sanctions mentioned today?

Margaret Beckett: That is a very interesting question—and I am sure that my colleague the Secretary of State for Defence has heard it.

Iraq and Afghanistan Update

Des Browne: With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
	I should like to start by expressing my deepest condolences to the families and friends of the brave servicemen who have lost their lives since I last spoke to the House on 24 July. Five soldiers have died in operations in Iraq, all of them killed in action. Twenty seven personnel from all three services have died in Afghanistan, with 11 killed in action and 16 lost in other incidents, including those killed in the RAF Nimrod crash on 2 September. Others have been wounded, and our thoughts should be with them also.
	I turn first to Iraq. The House will be aware of the escalation of sectarian violence in recent months, particularly in and around Baghdad. The combined Iraqi and American Baghdad security plan, about which I was briefed in Baghdad in August just before it began, is a major initiative aimed at improving security for all the communities in the city. The security element is closely followed by co-ordinated projects to improve basic services, backed by more than $400 million of funding. In those areas that have been cleared of terrorists and sectarian gangs so far—with 1,700 weapons seized—citizens are reporting better security and are starting to see improvements in their daily lives. That said, however, the overall level of violence across the city, including sectarian killings, remains unacceptable—there was further evidence of that today—but the plan is still in its early stages and there is impressive commitment from American, coalition, and Iraqi forces.
	In the UK's area of operation in south-east Iraq, the biggest challenge lies in Basra city. Two weeks ago, Iraqi and UK forces began a large-scale operation moving through the city sector by sector, strengthening security and improving basic services. One important element of the operation is a renewed effort to improve the capacity of the Iraqi police and to address infiltration by militias. The operation also includes clean-up projects, agriculture projects and projects to improve basic services, including bringing clean drinking water to a part of the city that has never had it before.
	Elsewhere in the south-east, in September Dhi Qar became the second province to be handed over to the Iraqi authorities, following al-Muthanna in July. We should congratulate the Iraqis on that achievement, and of course our international partners.
	In terms of future planning for the UK in Iraq, I can confirm that the force package for the next routine roulement in November, in which 19 Light Brigade takes over from 20 Armoured Brigade, is essentially what I outlined in my announcement to the House on 18 July. I also draw the House's attention to my written statement on 11 September, which confirmed a temporary deployment of 360 troops, including specialists such as engineers to help deliver the Basra projects I described earlier, and elements of the theatre reserve battalion, to provide support during the roulement period. Excluding the temporary deployment, this will leave our force level in Iraq at approximately 7,100.
	We should be in no doubt that this is a decisive period in the future of Iraq. There is much debate, here in Britain, in America and of course in Iraq, about the best way forward, but all agree that military means alone will not be decisive. This is especially true now, when it is clear that sectarianism and the struggle for power have emerged as a major threat to Iraq's security. What is required above all is a political solution. That must include a genuine effort at national reconciliation, drawing all Iraq's communities into a political process and away from violence. Prime Minister Maliki and his Government are trying to deliver that. We and our coalition partners must do all we can to support them and to strengthen their resolve—but so, too, must the international community as a whole and Iraq's near neighbours in particular.
	Let me turn to Afghanistan. The achievements and losses of our forces in Helmand province rightly have been the focus of our attention in the last two months. The work our forces are doing there is difficult, dangerous and exhausting. I salute them, particularly the men and women of 16 Air Assault Brigade, who are coming home, having been relieved by 3 Commando. I shall be visiting them tomorrow to thank them in person, but today, on behalf of the whole House, I should like formally to record our recognition of the bravery, professionalism and sacrifice of that brigade and all those from across the three services who supported them during their tour—[Hon. Members: "Hear, hear".]
	On this, the fifth anniversary of our intervention in Afghanistan, we should reflect on the progress our efforts have brought about: 2,000 schools built; 5 million children in school, a third of them girls; more than 70 new hospitals and clinics; and 4.5 million refugees returning home. This is not a failing mission.
	NATO, in the shape of ISAF—the international security assistance force—under the leadership of General Richards, now has responsibility for the whole of Afghanistan, but as we know, the summer has seen fierce fighting and as I made clear in a speech last month, the persistence of the Taliban was greater than expected. Such is the nature of operations: the enemy always has a vote—and we have adapted. But let me repeat: the force package we deployed, which we have strengthened further over the summer, was designed to deal with violent resistance, and in every encounter with the Taliban our forces have defeated them. Moreover, by attacking us directly, the Taliban have taken heavy losses, both in northern Helmand and against the Canadians in Kandahar. We have sent a clear message that we will not be beaten in combat—a message not lost on the local population. That has strengthened the position of local leaders, some of whom are now pursuing peaceful negotiations with our commands and with the Afghan Government.
	In Afghanistan, we have now reached a key point in the campaign. On Sunday, I spoke to General Richards and he described the situation as a window of opportunity. If we can build upon the blow we have delivered to the Taliban and if we can quickly deliver real, concrete changes to the lives of ordinary Afghans through development and reconstruction, we can begin to generate the lasting support that the Government need. So we are moving forward, but I have consistently made clear the challenges that we still face.
	The assumption of complete military command for Afghanistan is a significant achievement for NATO, but it is also a significant test. There are still shortfalls in the planned force structure. Caveats on the use of some forces remain. I have been in frequent, often daily, discussions with the Secretary-General and fellow Defence Ministers to reinforce the message that, as an alliance, we must live up to our commitment to Afghanistan, sharing the burden and, as important, sharing the risks. I ensured that this subject was top of the agenda at the NATO summit in Slovenia two weeks ago, and I will continue to press for urgent action.
	We have made some progress. Some caveats are lifting—the Poles have confirmed they will provide a battalion, and the Canadians plan to put further troops into the south. Importantly, General Richards judges that he has the forces to maintain the relatively stable security situation that now exists, but I will continue to push for his requirements to be met in full, as a matter of urgency.
	In Helmand, the UK task force also faces challenges. The battles that we have fought in the north of the province have brought us to the relative stability that we have seen in recent weeks. Taliban activity is down and engagement with local leaders is growing, but we must capitalise quickly with progress on reconstruction. We are rebalancing our forces, taking advantage of the steady improvement in the Afghan army and police to concentrate our forces on the central area surrounding the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. That should increase the scope for other Government Departments to act in safety, and it should also increase the confidence of local enterprises and international NGOs to begin the reconstruction that is at the core of our strategy.
	Back in the UK, the main challenge for me, for my Department and for the joint headquarters and the chiefs is to give our troops the resources that they need to get the job done. That is a relentless task, but we are rising to it. We have now almost completely deployed the reinforcements that I described to the House on 10 July, with the last elements due in Afghanistan in the next few weeks. That includes two more Chinook helicopters and more flying hours for helicopters across the fleet; more capacity to train the Afghan national army; engineers to take forward development; and more infantry.
	On 24 July, I announced a new package for protected vehicles for both Afghanistan and Iraq, including 100 new Mastiff and 100 additional Vector vehicles, funded by new money from the Treasury. We continue to invest heavily in force protection, including countermeasures to protect vehicles against attack, defensive aids for aircraft and personal body armour. I believe that we have shown that we can be responsive to the requests of commanders, and we will continue to be responsive.
	Of course, support for our troops is not just about numbers of people and equipment; it is also about pay, conditions, welfare and medical care. In all those areas, we are constantly reviewing what more is needed, and for some weeks now I have specifically been looking at pay levels for forces on operations. Our forces are some of the best paid in the world—only Canada pays more across the ranks—but forces from other countries do not pay tax when on operations, and this has led some to demand that we do the same for our people. I think we can do better.
	I am pleased to announce today that we intend to introduce a new tax-free, flat-rate operational bonus, which, for a six-month tour, would amount to £2,240. For an average private or lance-corporal, that is equivalent to the amount of tax that they would pay during a six-month tour. It means that half our people on operations will be better off than under a tax exemption—increasingly so for the lower paid. The most junior will be more than £500 better off after a six-month tour than if we simply exempted them from tax. As important, everyone on operations will be equally better off than they are now—by just under £100 per week, free of tax. I would like to thank my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for making more than £60 million of new money available so that we can fund this new bonus without taking any existing defence funding away from front-line needs.
	This is a complex area. I have been looking at these questions for weeks, but I can assure the House that the troops who have been fighting in Afghanistan over the summer will not lose out as a result. The payment will be backdated to 1 April 2006, as an adjustment to pay arrangements in the current financial year. Full details of eligibility will be made public shortly, but I can confirm that, besides Afghanistan, the payment will apply to our forces in Iraq and in the Balkans.
	Finally, let me deal with the issue of medical care for those injured on operations. First, I want to challenge the notion that the current system is in any way inferior to what went before. In particular, the relentless attack on the work of the outstanding medical staff—military and civilian—at Selly Oak hospital is both unfair and misplaced. I have been there twice in recent months. It is one of the highest-performing and most successful hospital trusts in the NHS and provides major specialist centres for trauma, burns, plastic surgery and neuroscience.
	Our primary concern is to give our injured people the best medical care available. That is to be found inside the NHS. While some have been calling in public for a return to military hospitals, we have been quietly getting on with the job of establishing a military managed ward at Selly Oak in partnership with the NHS. I can confirm that this will be operational before the end of the year.
	I have been open about the nature of the challenges that we face in our operational theatres. I do not seek to hide from the House the difficulties we face in overcoming them, but I am convinced our strategy remains the right one. In Afghanistan, we have to tackle the south and the east if we are to secure what has already been achieved in the rest of the country. We have to make the comprehensive approach work, with all Government Departments acting together to achieve our objectives. We have to get NATO to live up to its commitments. In Iraq, we have to support the Iraqi Government and their army and police in taking responsibility for their own security and in holding the line against sectarian violence. We will do all these things—we cannot afford not to.
	I have spoken many times about the debt we owe the men and women who serve in our armed forces and who carry out this hard and dangerous work on our behalf. I am sure the House will join me in paying tribute to them again today.

Liam Fox: Let me begin by associating myself and my colleagues with the Secretary of State's condolences to the families and friends of all those who have given their lives for our security. Let me pay tribute to all those servicemen and women who have performed so well under such difficult circumstances in Iraq and Afghanistan.
	As I have said several times in the House, the Opposition fully support the Government's aims in Afghanistan: to prevent the recurrence of a failed state and the re-emergence of al-Qaeda and the effects this would have on Britain's security. It is more true now than ever that NATO's reputation in on the line. Our collective security requires a properly collective response—a response that has been notably lacking from some quarters of our allies.
	It is, however, the duty of the Opposition to hold the Government to account for the means of achieving these objectives. From the outset of the deployment to Afghanistan questions have been raised about whether too much planning was done on the basis of the most optimistic potential outcome. Public opinion was prepared largely for a mission that was about peacekeeping, not war fighting. From the very beginning, questions were asked about the level of manpower and equipment being deployed given the difficulties that might be faced. In the event, the realists, rather than the optimists, have been proved right. Resistance from the Taliban has been fierce and the deployment under-strength. As a result, not only were a further 900 troops sent by the Government in July, but NATO commanders on the ground still believe that they are undermanned. I certainly do not agree with the assertion made by the Secretary of State for Defence in July that:
	"neither the Taliban, nor the range of illegally armed groups, currently pose a threat to the long-term stability of Afghanistan".
	These major strategic questions require a great deal of analysis, which I am sure that the House will want to give them in due course. Today, I have a number of specific questions for the Secretary of State, relating to our deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. These include the safety of our troops, the need for more equipment, the calculation of casualties, the treatment of those injured, the inadequacy of the inquest system and the lack of reconstruction.
	Let me begin with the question of body armour. On 18 September, the Secretary of State said in a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) that Osprey, the body armour that provides extra protection for the neck and shoulders, would replace ECBA, which provides only minimal chest protection. How many sets of Osprey armour have already been provided for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and what proportion of our troops can receive it when necessary? The correct answer should be 100 per cent.
	Let me next turn to helicopters. The Prime Minister said recently that our commanders can have "all that they want." They immediately responded by saying that they wanted more helicopters. The worry is that the Government may promise what they are unable to provide. How many helicopters do we have that could be used in Afghanistan, but are not being used? How many helicopters do we have that are not fit for purpose? For example, the Ministry of Defence's own figures suggest that only 41 per cent. of the Lynx and Gazelle fleets are fit for purpose. What requests have been made to our NATO allies for extra helicopters? Which nations currently have the capacity to provide appropriate helicopters, but have not done so? How many military helicopters have we earmarked for sale to foreign countries and why did the Government cut the battlefield helicopter budget from £4.5 billion to £3.2 billion as recently as 2004? On available vehicles, how many of the Mastiff and Vector vehicles announced in the July package have now been delivered in theatre?
	On the issue of casualty numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan, we want to see greater transparency. At the moment, there are discrepancies between the way in which UK and US casualty figures are compiled. In particular, only casualties who are admitted for in-patient treatment or casivaced are included in our official figures. What we are not told is the proportion of our troops who are injured sufficiently to make them unfit for duty, but who do not require hospitalisation. The US provides figures on those who are injured, but return to duty within 72 hours. Can we please have the same?
	Of those who are injured in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is essential that they are treated by those with the best medical skills, but in the most appropriate environment. No one has attacked the excellent work of the medical and nursing staff, and to suggest that is deplorable, but to have injured servicemen and women and reservists treated in wards alongside civilian patients is just not acceptable. Part of the healing process is about coming to terms with the nature of their injuries and that is best done among their comrades. We want an assurance today from the Secretary of State that everything possible will be done to ensure that those who return to the UK will be treated in exclusively military wards. The British public will expect nothing less.
	Back in May, I wrote to the Secretary of State about the unacceptable level of outstanding inquests for those killed in action. The backlog results in families being unable to achieve closure of the tragic events that have occurred. At the time, in response to the request, the Government made more resources available to the Oxfordshire coroner, yet the situation remains completely unacceptable. The Coroners Act 1988 gives the coroner the ability to delegate the responsibility of carrying out an inquest to another county. Why is this not being used? Do Ministers have the power to instruct the coroner to make that happen? If not, and if a ministerial order is required to make that possible, the Government will have the full co-operation of the Conservative party to make that possible.
	Let me welcome the announcement of extra money for those on the front line. They deserve no less. I am delighted that the Government have responded so quickly to the Leader of the Opposition's initiative. If we can achieve this much in opposition, how much more could we achieve in government? Will the payment have a minimum qualifying period; will it apply to all three services; will it be repeated for every deployment; and what impact will it have on tax credits for those at the lower end of the pay scale?
	Finally, let me ask about reconstruction. In respect of Iraq, the Secretary of State is right to concentrate on the need for a political solution and the establishment of an independent judicial system. However, can he remind the House today who is responsible for the training and development of the police service in Iraq, and why it is so far behind schedule?
	In Afghanistan, we are about to enter a crucial phase. We have seen fierce fighting and an enormous commitment to defeat the Taliban. But without substantial reconstruction on the ground, and after five years of a foreign military presence, those in the south of Afghanistan might rightly question why they have seen no improvements to their infrastructure. Two hundred schools in Kandahar, and 165 in Helmand, are closed for security reasons, and DFID has withdrawn its only representative in Helmand.
	Let me put the following question to the Secretary of State: what sort of security environment do the NGOs expect there to be before genuine reconstruction begins? Do they expect a zero-risk environment? If they do, we will never have the basic requirements of what is needed to win the hearts and minds of the peasant farmers in south Afghanistan. Will the right hon. Gentleman take the earliest opportunity to impress upon the Secretary of State for International Development the need to get the NGOs operating? If we do not do so, the sacrifices of our men and women in Afghanistan could be in vain, and that would be a completely unacceptable outcome for the House and the country.

Des Browne: If I were to answer all the questions the hon. Gentleman has put to me, I suspect that I would incur your wrath, Mr. Speaker. However, I will endeavour to deal with the principal issues raised and, to the extent that I do not answer them, I will write to the hon. Gentleman and place the answers in the Library. That will allow other Members to ask questions today.
	At the outset, let me repeat something that I have said to the hon. Gentleman on more than one occasion: I value the support that he and the majority of those who sit on the Conservative Benches give for the operations in Afghanistan and for their objectives. It is important to those whom we charge with the responsibility of carrying out those very dangerous operations that they know that they have that support.
	Let me deal with the body armour issue, because I know that the hon. Gentleman has a specific interest in it, and he has expressed a view in the media about it: 15,000 sets of Osprey armour have been deployed into the operational theatre, and anybody who can do the simple arithmetic required will know that that is more than the number of people who have been deployed into both theatres. However, that does not guarantee that there is a set for every individual, because soldiers, like Members of Parliament, come in different shapes and sizes.
	I undertook that the new Osprey body armour would be deployed into theatre by late autumn, and I suggest that the figure of 15,000 confirms that that has been achieved. I now tell the House that there will be sufficient body armour for absolutely everybody in theatre by January of next year, but I can also give the reassurance that nobody who is deployed in theatre into a situation where they are exposed to the possibility of being under fire is denied the use of Osprey armour. There are more than enough versions of that advanced system of body armour for everybody to have them. Therefore, I am confident that we have achieved the objective that we set, which reflects the answer that was given to the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples), and that we will achieve our overall objective by January of next year.
	The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) asked a number of specific questions about helicopters for which, candidly, I do not have the information to be able to answer. However, I will have those questions researched and answer them in writing. However, let me say in relation to helicopters that the hon. Gentleman is of course right to suggest that we should not promise what cannot be delivered, but he should also be careful not just to read what the newspaper headlines state that those in theatre say about helicopters. The headlines relating to the alleged request for more helicopters were not supported by the body of the actual interview with the commander of the British forces; that is not what he said in response to the Prime Minister's remarks. That having been said, we are constantly reviewing helicopter numbers, and there has been a significant increase in helicopter capability, particularly for Afghanistan. Along with senior members of the Department and my fellow Ministers, I am reviewing what we can do to increase the availability of helicopters not just by generating further air frames, but by generating the crew, spares and other support necessary to provide that further capability, if that is at all possible.
	On medical care, I point out that, as the House already knows, those who call for the reopening of military hospitals ought to remind themselves how we came to no longer have such hospitals. The defence cost study 15 of 1994 was responsible for the closure of our military hospitals, on the basis of saving money. In fact, in the light of developments in medical practice, closing those hospitals was the right thing to do. It is entirely appropriate that the best care be provided to our forces, and that is to be found in the national health service.
	As I said, we are seeking to provide a military-managed ward in an appropriate environment within Selly Oak. The hon. Gentleman associated himself with the criticisms that others have made of Selly Oak hospital by intervening in the debate in the manner that he did. If he is going to comment on the quality of NHS care, he should visit the hospital. I invite him to visit Selly Oak, to see the wards for himself and to speak to the troops, as I have done. I visited it very recently, and the troops who are getting that NHS help and service spoke with glowing praise for those providing that care.
	There has also been uninformed speculation about the way in which we record injuries and put our casualty figures into the public domain. It was suggested this week on the front page of a local newspaper that 5,000 injured troops were unable to be deployed on the front line because they were on an NHS waiting list. None of this is true. There may well be about 5,000 people in that medical category, but that does not mean that they are all injured. Some of those people are just being treated by their GPs, just as anybody in civilian life might be who was signed off by their doctor. The way in which we record and publish casualty figures—I am looking at that process, and I am prepared to consider the hon. Gentleman's suggestion—has been consistent over the years and is consistent historically with the way in which British forces have published such figures. Of course, had we changed it, we would have been accused of doing so in order to hide something else.
	I am very keen to have a system that puts the information that we have into the public domain as openly, freely and quickly as possible, and I will do everything that I can to get to that. But what I will not do is to ask those responsible for the safety of our troops on the ground to take part in some sort of bureaucratic exercise designed to serve the purposes of people who want to make political capital out of those casualties.

Don Touhig: May I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement this afternoon and confine my brief remarks to just two areas? First, I totally associate myself with what he said about Selly Oak hospital. Anybody who visits it will see that it is a first-class, professional caring environment, and it does a tremendous job in looking after the injured, who served our country so well in many theatres. Secondly, I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement about the new payments; this underpins the value agenda, which is so important. We as a country have to demonstrate how much we value our servicemen and women. Our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq are often under critical scrutiny, some of it very unfair, and his statement today on the new payments will do more to boost their morale than anything else that he could have done.

Des Browne: I thank my right hon. Friend for his support. By asking a question on pay, he gives me the opportunity to indicate that the answer to all the questions on pay asked by the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) is yes. The payment will apply to all those who are deployed. It should not affect tax credits, but I will examine the detail of that.

Nick Harvey: May I echo most sincerely the words of condolence to the families of those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan during the summer recess and express my good wishes to those who are recovering from injuries?
	I thank the Secretary of State for his wide-ranging statement, but I urge the Government to make time available for a full debate on the foreign policy implications of the developments that are taking place. The Leader of the House has called the situation in Iraq "pretty dire", and the Secretary of State referred in his statement to this being a decisive period, although he rightly said that military means alone will not be decisive. What is the British strategy in Iraq? What is our attitude to the work of the US envoy, James Baker, and to the widely discussed possibility of a US strategy to divide Iraq into three parts? What role do we now see for the UN? Those may be Foreign Office questions, but that proves my point about the need for a fuller debate in the House.
	I warmly welcome today's confirmation that there will be a rebalancing of our forces in Afghanistan, with the Afghan army and police taking over the platoon houses in the northern areas, which will enable us to concentrate our forces in the central area around Lashkar Gah. Does the Secretary of State agree with General Richards, who said in his radio interview yesterday that we must improve the lot of the Afghans in the next six months if they are not to turn back to the Taliban for support? Indeed, might we have been further advanced in winning over the support of the Afghan people if we had not diverted so much effort into Iraq in 2003?
	How quickly can the Prime Minister's welcome promise of additional kit and equipment be fulfilled? Brigadier Butler said that helicopters were his top priority and pointed out how much faster our progress would be if we had more helicopters. Can the Secretary of State confirm newspaper reports in Demark saying that some of its new Merlins will be diverted to the UK? If that occurs, will they be available over the winter months, when land travel is difficult? When will the Chinooks that are so scandalously grounded be available for use, and how will all that fit into General Richards's six-month window of opportunity?
	Last but not least, I warmly welcome the tax-free operational bonus that the Secretary of State announced today. That option is better, more logical and more transparent than a messy tax rebate scheme. It is welcome that it will be backdated to 1 April. Nevertheless, there may be complaints from those who miss out. Will he confirm that the pay review body will not adjust the X factor downwards in any way to compensate for that?
	We should all commend the excellent work of those who have served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, including 16 Air Assault Brigade and 3 Commando, with people from my area who have gone out there to take over. However, I say again that a substantial debate on where this is all going in foreign policy terms is long overdue.

Des Browne: It is not in my gift to grant time in the House for a foreign policy debate, but the hon. Gentleman knows that I would welcome any opportunity to explain our policy on Iraq and Afghanistan from the point of view of the Ministry of Defence and the Government. I am proud of the work that we are doing in both theatres.
	The hon. Gentleman asks what our objectives are in Iraq. They have not changed. We are there at present in the context of a United Nations resolution to support the democratically elected Iraqi Government, to ensure that they run the country and, as I said in my statement, to support them at this challenging time. We should bear it in mind that the Government of national unity have been in existence for only 139 days. However, people are judging them against ambitions that would be challenging for Governments that had been in power for decades, if not centuries. They are facing attacks on their authority from terrorists. As I have explained from the Dispatch Box on numerous occasions, there are difficulties, especially in multinational division south-east and in Basra, due to competition for economic and political power.
	We are there to provide support to the Iraqi security forces and that has not changed. In response to an earlier question, let me say that 307,000 members of those security forces—about half of them police officers—have been trained by the coalition since the training of forces started.
	The hon. Gentleman asks about my view of the comments of others—people who, I hasten to add, have no responsibility of government and no responsibility in Iraq—on what they think might be best, or what people think they think might be best for the Iraqi people. In my view, but, more importantly, in the view of the Iraqi people and their Government, the break-up of Iraq is not in their best interests. Their constitutional position allows for federalism in some circumstances, but that is a matter that they need to work through, which is what politics is about. That work may be difficult and challenging, but that is what democratic politics is like. If we want Iraq's Government to be a democratic Government, exercising control over their own people, we need to support them to do that.
	Like the hon. Member for Woodspring, the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) raises our inability during the period in which our forces were deployed in northern Helmand—supporting the Afghan provincial government at the request of President Karzai and the national Government—to mobilise our forces in the central part of Helmand to carry out reconstruction work. Everybody knows about that—it is an historical fact, well documented and debated. The decision was made by our commanders on the ground and I fully support them in that. It appears, from the way in which they have been able to fight the Taliban to a standstill and get the support of the local population in those areas, that that effort has been successful. That success must be sustained, which will be a challenge. However, redeployment of forces back into the centre will allow us to carry out reconstruction work.
	I have here a document that sets out the reconstruction projects that have taken place in Helmand province, summarising completed projects, current projects and proposed projects. The document was provided to me by the Department for International Development for this statement. Rather than read it out, I shall place a copy in the Library so that all hon. Members can see what has been done. It is not the case that nothing has been done: a significant amount of reconstruction has been done in Helmand province, albeit not as much as we want.
	Is General Richards right to say that the next six months will the most important period in the Afghan operation? Yes—but in the five months that I have been in my present job, every next six months has been the most important six months in both theatres of operation. Everybody tells me that, and it is always true. That is the challenge that we face over the winter, and we will have to be up to it.

Kevan Jones: I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's statement today. I visited Helmand province with the Select Committee on Defence in July and I can tell him that the men and women of the Army and Air Force we met there showed a high degree of bravery and morale is very high.
	We also visited Lashkar Gah and the provincial reconstruction team there. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if press reports that the brave DFID officer has been withdrawn are true, that will be a retrograde step?

Des Browne: The hon. Member for Woodspring also raised that issue, which is at the heart of what we are trying to do in reconstruction. Not only our Government, but our allies in NATO and the EU will consistently be faced with the challenge of helping countries to move from conflict, through reconstruction and into a positive future. Part of that challenge, as he said, is to decide what measure of security is sufficient for us to deploy people who have not signed up to the military. Incidentally, I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that all three forces are represented in Afghanistan and are making a significant contribution there. We have to decide, realistically, what degree of security we can generate in circumstances such as those in Helmand province, and whether that is sufficient for us to deploy people who, unlike members of the military, do not sign up for the level of risk that those who sign up for the military are prepared to accept.
	That is a significant challenge faced by the international community, and not just the British Government, so I have engaged with our international partners on it. We need to have a debate, because we need to find a way of delivering reconstruction in such circumstances repeatedly in future. There are many countries in Africa that we, as an international community, have ambitions to help. I am not suggesting that UK forces will be present, but other forces will be, and the exact circumstances will be replicated. We need to ask ourselves whether we can expose people doing reconstruction work to that level of risk, or where we can find and generate the partners who can do that work.
	Those are not easy questions to answer, but I say to my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), who has been to the area and seen the problems for himself, that that does not necessarily mean that people need to be present in the theatre to be able to provide support for reconstruction. We can find partners, and the list of—

Tobias Ellwood: There is not even one NGO.

Des Browne: That is not entirely correct. We can find partners, in the form of local contractors and other people, who can deliver reconstruction work for us that develops the cycle that we all want, in which security leads to reconstruction and development, in turn generating more security. We all know that that is what we need to do. Simply identifying the problem does not help to resolve it.

Mark Lancaster: I should perhaps declare my interest as someone who may receive the operational payment. Although I shall donate mine to the Royal British Legion, I thank the Secretary of State on behalf of my fellow servicemen, as it is a small step in the right direction. Progress is being made, but it is painfully slow. There is a complete lack of capability or capacity in the provinces. The DFID officer has not been in Helmand for some months, and the military cannot deliver reconstruction; it can only deliver stability. Does the Secretary of State agree that the time has come for a degree of political honesty and that, if we are to achieve what the Government want to achieve in Afghanistan, we will be there not for two or three years, but for 15 or 20 years? The hand-to-mouth existence of the military simply cannot go on.

Des Browne: I thank the hon. Gentleman—[Hon. Members: "And gallant."] I apologise; I thank the hon. and gallant Gentleman for his personal contribution. Clearly, because of his own experience, he speaks from knowledge of the situation, and I recognise that. I thank him, too, for his welcome for the additional payment to troops deployed in operational theatre. I am sure that that they will take note of his comments. In passing, the pay review body was of course consulted about the payment and welcomed it. It constantly reviews the information on which it bases its advice, but it is independent of Government and I do not speak for it; it can speak for itself.
	The hon. Gentleman asks me to be honest, on behalf of the Government, about the scale of the challenge that we have taken on. I have endeavoured to be just that throughout the time that I have been Secretary of State for Defence. I hasten to add that my predecessor, who had responsibility for deploying troops to Afghanistan, was honest, too. The fact of the matter is that, for political purposes, people seek to edit the words that he used. They ignore the four and a half pages of his statement and take one phrase. That is the dishonesty in the way in which matters have been explained to the people of the United Kingdom.
	People need only look at the configuration of the force that we sent to Helmand province. We sent paratroopers, eight Apache attack helicopters, and artillery. If there is any suggestion that that in any way supports a conclusion other than that we were configured for the possibility of doing some war fighting in those circumstances, it defies logic. The fact of the matter is that this was always going to be difficult. The southern part of Afghanistan is the Taliban's heartland, and it was always going to be difficult. It was always going to require a long-term commitment to that country by NATO, the United Nations and the developed world. This obsession about time does not help us to get the job done. There is no alternative to doing this job: it is the most noble—

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I stop the Secretary of State? I allowed a long statement and a long response from Front Benchers because of the nature of this statement. This shows that Front Benchers can take an inordinate amount of time out of these statements. From this point on, I want very brief questions and brief answers. In the near future I will be making a Speaker's statement regarding the nature of statements that are brought to this House. Back Benchers are not getting the chance to which they are entitled.

David Winnick: In view of the endless slaughter of largely innocent civilians in Iraq and the inability of the occupation authorities to provide the necessary protection in any way whatsoever, is there not a case for seriously considering whether the whole issue of Iraq should be referred back to the Security Council of the United Nations? Why should we believe that the situation will be any different next year or the year after?

Des Browne: The answer to my hon. Friend is perfectly simple. There is due to be a renewal of the United Nations Security Council resolution and we will presumably have the opportunity to debate it.

Michael Ancram: Given that the increasingly dangerous and bloody mission in which our brave soldiers are engaged in Helmand province is, whatever the Secretary of State says, completely different from the peaceful mission of reconstruction that the Government rashly told us was the original purpose of our deployment, is it not time for the Government to review the whole question of our deployment into Helmand—in particular, so as to determine what benefits it is currently bringing to the people of that province?

Des Browne: The right hon. and learned Gentleman should be aware that the deployment into Helmand is not increasingly dangerous—in fact, over the past four weeks it has become increasingly stable and productive and more generating of circumstances that will allow us to do the reconstruction work that we went there to do in the first place.

Jane Kennedy: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement. In view of the comments that have been made about the lack of progress in Afghanistan, can he say a little more about the progress that has been made as regards the position of women there? For example, about a quarter of the Afghanistan Parliament comprises women Members—women who, under the Taliban, would have been not only required to wear a certain form of dress but virtually excluded from society.

Des Browne: The simplest answer that I can give my right hon. Friend is that there are now 5 million children in school in Afghanistan, one third of whom are girls who were denied education under the Taliban. However, the most impressive statistic that has come out of what we have achieved as an international community in Afghanistan is that 4.5 million people who chose to live outside Afghanistan and who had families and connections there have gone back to live in the country. This is the single biggest repatriation of refugees that the world has ever known.

Crispin Blunt: Is not the truth of the matter that artillery and Apache helicopters are rather limited in their abilities as regards reconstruction, that the military operation has been wholly unaccompanied by an equivalent level of reconstruction, and that as a result the past six months of British efforts in Afghanistan have made worse, not better, the situation with regard to support for the foreign military intervention from the local peasant farmers whom we are trying to help?

Des Browne: The hon. Gentleman makes exactly the point that I made to the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey). Because of the way in which commanding officers, appropriately, deployed our troops at the point at which they went into Helmand, they were not available to be able to generate for the central area of Helmand the security that they were sent there to generate in order to support the reconstruction work. Increasingly, however, the opportunity is there for them to be available. They have been supported by the additional troops that I announced in July. That opportunity will become apparent over the winter months. The challenge is whether we can take that opportunity to start the reconstruction at the level that we planned.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement of the operational bonus. When I visited Iraq earlier this year, I met the troops and saw the conditions in which they were operating. I represent Portsmouth—the home of the Royal Navy, which is also playing its part in Iraq by protecting Iraqi oil platforms and training the Iraqi navy. Will he confirm that this bonus will apply to sailors in the Royal Navy deployed on operations in Iraq?

Des Browne: I thank my hon. Friend for her support, and for giving me the opportunity to pay tribute to the work that the Royal Navy is doing in Iraq to protect the oil infrastructure that generates almost all the income that the Iraqi Government now enjoy from their own oil reserves. I had the privilege of visiting HMS Kent when I went to Iraq in August, and I was able to see for myself the work that was being done. Those people are equally committed, equally brave and equally professional.

Robert Smith: The Secretary of State has recognised in his statement that there have been genuine concerns about the medical care of the wounded who are being repatriated to the United Kingdom, in that a military-managed wing is to be opened at Selly Oak hospital. Will he tell the House what proportion of those who are repatriated will be treated in that wing, and whether other military-managed wings are to be opened in other NHS facilities?

Des Browne: The disposition of patients in terms of their care is related to their clinical need. I am not in a position to make decisions about the clinical needs of those who return from Afghanistan or Iraq for whatever reason. The majority of those who are medically evacuated from those theatres are returned not because of injuries that they have received in combat but for epidemiological reasons similar to those experienced by the general population. With respect to the hon. Gentleman, therefore, much as I would like to answer his question simply and quickly, I have no idea how to answer it because I have no idea what we will be facing. However, one of the beauties of our being able to treat people who are returned to this country in the national health system is that it gives them access to some of the best care in the world.

Jeremy Corbyn: Will the Secretary of State give us an estimate of the number of soldiers and civilians—in addition to the tragic loss of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan—who have died in both countries since the operation began five years ago in Afghanistan and three and a half years ago in Iraq?

Des Browne: I am not in the business of making estimates of the number of people who have died, any more than I would be in the business of estimating the number whom Saddam Hussein killed, or the number of citizens of Afghanistan who gave their lives to secure the freedom and the democratically elected Government they now enjoy. However, if I were to estimate the number that Saddam Hussein killed and the number of Afghans who have given their lives to secure that freedom, I suspect that, in both cases, it would be in the millions.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: Will the Secretary of State join me in thanking the soldiers of 1st Battalion the Royal Irish Regiment, who have served with great distinction and courage in Afghanistan, losing three of their number in tragic circumstances? Will he also give me a commitment that those men and women will receive the food and water supplies that they need, as there have been logistical difficulties in ensuring that those supplies arrive regularly and on time?

Des Browne: I have no difficulty in accepting the hon. Gentleman's invitation to pay tribute to those who have served, whether in the Royal Irish Regiment or any other regiment or unit in any of the services. I do that freely because they are entitled to that tribute. However, I should like to make a point about rations during war fighting. It devalues the contribution that troops, particularly soldiers, make in those circumstances—and, to some degree, sanitises how difficult, dirty and dangerous their work is—if we seek to explain the fact that soldiers have to live in uncomfortable positions by saying that it is because of a failure of logistics or supply. Often, this is simply a function of how dangerous the circumstances are, and we ought to recognise that as part of the reason why we should pay such a significant tribute to those people.

Dari Taylor: I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's statement. Will he confirm that the excellent United Kingdom support currently given to the Afghan security sector will be continued, and will he consider allowing it to grow? I ask because I think it significant to the reconstruction of Afghanistan. If it does not happen, I think that the indictment for all of us will be that the Taliban will be given the word go, and its tyranny will be seen by all local Afghan people.

Des Browne: I thank my hon. Friend for her support. She is right to suggest that in Afghanistan the exit strategy for all who are there from other countries is building up of the Afghan Government's ability not just to govern, but to secure their own people through professional forces at both army and police level. That is our significant focus, and that is why in July I announced that additional troops would go out and work with the security sector, training Afghan forces to take over from us. We need to do that, we need to do more of it, and we need to do it very effectively, because that is the test of our ability to reconstruct and to secure Afghanistan. My hon. Friend is perfectly correct in that regard.

Andrew Murrison: In his statement, the Secretary of State asserted that "the best medical care is to be found inside the NHS for our returning troops that are injured". How does he square that with the farming out of combat-stressed casualties to Labour-donor-run Priory clinics, and the destruction on his watch of the discipline of military psychiatry?

Des Browne: The hon. Gentleman has quoted part of what I said. At that point, as I recollect, I was referring to the quality of care available in a specific trust at Selly Oak which has an international reputation for trauma medicine. That is why the decision was made to base the centre of our medical support there.
	I accept that there are challenges in relation to the provision of, in particular, psychiatric care. Statements were being made about that before my watch, and I am endeavouring—with the ministerial team, and with the support of the medical structure that we have—to provide the level of support that is appropriate for those who have undergone these experiences.
	Let me say to the hon. Gentleman that he ought to look at his own party's record in relation to the medical care of our troops before he starts criticising other people.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, and in particular for the update on Afghanistan. Will he clarify whether recent successes against the Taliban have been strong enough to create circumstances in which the schools and health centres that they recently destroyed can be rebuilt, and whether it is safe for women to exercise a public role—even a limited one—or to take up employment without fear of execution?

Des Browne: My hon. Friend has set one of a number of tests of whether reconstruction is working. In the detail of the discussions between community leaders, the Afghan Government, the provincial government in Helmand and indeed the NATO forces, the reconstruction of schools is at the heart of what we are about. It is a symbol of significant progress. That is why a statistic that I frequently use as a test of progress is the number of girls in education. The ability to liberate girls and women from the tyranny of the Taliban will, I believe, be the consistent measure of our progress.

Patrick Mercer: As long ago as February, Conservative Members warned the Government that in the event of serious resistance in Afghanistan, 16 Air Assault Brigade would not have the equipment, the firepower or, above all, the manpower that it required to do the job. Recognising that, 3 Commando Brigade planned to take two complete commandos out with it this autumn; yet it deployed with half the infantry that it had planned. Why is that?

Des Browne: The nature of the force that we deployed was based on military advice given to Ministers not only by chiefs, but by military experts who went on to the ground and examined the situation. The configuration and nature of the force were based on the best military advice. The difference is that an entirely appropriate decision was taken at the point of deployment. That decision had consequences, but it may be—time will tell—that it will be to the long-term benefit of the deployment and the objectives of the operation. As everyone tells me constantly, these are the sorts of things that happen when one deploys forces into theatre. Circumstances change, and the very fact of deployment into theatre generates change itself.

Paul Flynn: How can we win the hearts and minds of the people in Helmand when the majority believe that we are there to get rid of their main source of income? With Karzai increasingly appointing warlords, ex-Taliban leaders, criminals and drug dealers as police chiefs and provincial governors, is not the likelihood that oppression by these provincial governors and police chiefs will greatly increase the danger to our soldiers? Should we not rethink the mission to consolidate the real progress made elsewhere in Afghanistan, because escalation could result in a situation that develops into NATO's Vietnam?

Des Browne: I do not know who my hon. Friend has been talking to, but NATO and others in Afghanistan carry out regular tests of public opinion. If he wants to know the current situation, between 67 and 70 per cent. of people in Helmand province not only want the UK forces to be there, they want more of them; they want more security. They say that they want the soldiers there, doing the job that they are doing.
	My hon. Friend should be careful in what he says in this House, particularly if it is not properly informed. The description he has given of the governance of Helmand is far from the truth. Governor Engineer Mohammad Daud is a very brave, committed and non-corrupt individual, which is why we want to support him so much. He is a force for good in Helmand province. To suggest publicly here that that man is corrupt will feed straight back into his community and will put not only his life at risk, but the lives of those who support him.

Angus Robertson: With regard to the tragic loss of 12 service personnel aboard a Nimrod from RAF Kinloss, may I commend the MOD, the Secretary of State and his colleagues for the initial return of the bodies to their home base? However, it has been brought to my attention that the release of the bodies to the families has been delayed. Will he expedite that situation?

Des Browne: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his recognition of the steps that were taken, but they were entirely appropriate steps to support the families in their tragic circumstances. They were comparatively easy decisions to make. I hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say. He will forgive me if I do not want to discuss the potential reasons why there may have been delays, as that may be distressing for people and inappropriate. However, I will look into it and will be in touch.

Richard Bacon: The hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), who is no longer in her place, asked the Secretary of State whether the bonus payment would apply to the Royal Navy. He did not answer. Will it apply?

Des Browne: Yes.
	Mr. Tobas Ellwood (Bournemouth, East): On a recent visit to Lashkar Gah, it was clear that the troops were calling for more firepower, more mobility and more armour. They want more helicopters, in addition to the 12 that are there. They also would like to a Warrior battalion sent out. How many helicopters are there now, how many will be there in future and when will we see a Warrior battalion sent into theatre?

Des Browne: There are eight attack helicopters, as I have already told the House. There are eight Chinook support helicopters, an increase of two since my July statement. There are four Lynx utility helicopters, light armour, light guns, logistics support forces and five Hercules transport aircraft. That comprehensive answer goes beyond what the hon. Gentleman asked. The configuration of forces and the nature of the support they get is the result of a process, whereby requests are made through the appropriate chain of command to Ministers, who respond. That is exactly what happened in July. The difference then, however, was that when the request came up the chain of command to chiefs of staff and Ministers, it was pushed back down and the question was asked whether there were enough or more were needed. In fact, the request was reviewed and requests for additional support came up at that stage because of the questions that were asked. It is not for me to take those sort of decisions from the Dispatch Box. I spoke to General Richards and he did not ask me for any additional forces support in the form of helicopters or whatever. If such a request is made, I will treat it in exactly the same way as I have treated all requests from either theatre that I have received so far.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I appreciate that these are important matters, but we must now move on to other business.

Orders of the Day

Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

[Relevant documents: First Joint Report of the Home Affairs and Work and Pensions Committees, Session 2005—06, on the Draft Corporate Manslaughter Bill, HC 540, and the Government's response thereto, Cm 6755; twenty-seventh Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Session 2005—06, Legislative Scrutiny: Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill, HC 1625.]
	 Order for Second Reading read.

John Reid: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	The Government are committed to a properly balanced criminal justice system—a criminal justice system that protects the public inside and outside the home and in the workplace.
	In opening the debate, may I first pay tribute to Maurice de Rohan, who died late last week? Maurice de Rohan lost his daughter, Alison, and son-in-law, Francis, in the 1987 Zeebrugge ferry disaster, which claimed the lives of 187 people. He brought together people affected by a series of tragedies in the late 1980s, out of which sprang the charity Disaster Action, which has provided an important advocacy and advisory service, giving voice to the survivors and the bereaved of major disasters and contributed significantly to the debate on corporate manslaughter. Maurice remained chairman of Disaster Action until October 2005 and was a trustee until his death. It is fitting that we mark his passing on this occasion.

Tony Lloyd: I would like to associate everyone with those remarks. One important fact about Maurice de Rohan that is worth recording is that despite his personal tragedy, he maintained his own sense of humanity in every action that he took. It is wholly fit and proper for us to take note of my right hon. Friend's tribute today.

John Reid: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He spoke for many in the House who knew Maurice de Rohan.
	It is as a result of the efforts of Disaster Action and, indeed, of others such as the trade union movement that have campaigned hard for reform that we are debating the Bill today. I pay tribute to all their efforts, including those with whom we are in substantial as well as entire agreement, and those with whom we have longstanding differences. The commonality of effort and objective here is far greater than any of the differences that separate us.
	Each year, more than 200 workers and many more members of the public are killed as a result of work-related incidents. Some are extremely serious incidents, in respect of which the companies involved have been strongly criticised.

David Clelland: Is the Home Secretary aware that in Saltwell park in my constituency there is a memorial to those who have died in the course of their employment? At this year's remembrance service, I was proud to be able to announce that the Government would be introducing this measure, so I congratulate the Home Secretary on speaking to the Bill this afternoon. However, he will also be aware of some concerns about weaknesses in the Bill as drafted—not least in the definition of senior managers and in respect of the range of available penalties. Will he assure the House that such matters will be thoroughly scrutinised in Committee and that any weaknesses will be corrected to firm up the Bill and make it even better than it is now?

John Reid: I can assure my hon. Friend that I am aware that, irrespective of our agreement on general objectives, some outstanding disagreements remain. I hope that we can remedy one or two of those today through my speech and we will no doubt debate and, if possible, agree others in the course of proceedings on the Bill. In either case, I assure him that we will be open to working with him and others to give the Bill the greatest scrutiny possible. I would have preferred to introduce the Bill earlier because of its importance to many people, not least many of my colleagues in the trade union movement. Whatever our differences and despite the delay, I hope that there is a welcome for the Bill after eight or nine years. I am delighted to put it before the House.
	There have been terrible examples in which the loss of life was extensive, and the companies involved have been strongly criticised. In the case of the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, Lord Justice Sheen found that from
	"top to bottom the body corporate was infected with the disease of sloppiness".
	Right hon. and hon. Members will be fully aware of the consequences of that terrible disaster. Last year, Mr. Justice Mackay described the circumstances of the Hatfield crash in 2000 as
	"the worst example of sustained, industrial negligence in a high-risk industry"
	that he had ever seen.
	Despite such examples, the law as it stands in relation to corporate liability makes prosecutions in such cases extremely difficult. A prosecution for corporate manslaughter can proceed only if gross negligence can be proved against individual senior managers. That means that the courts must judge corporate negligence on a narrow and sometimes artificial basis. The result is that only a handful of corporate manslaughter prosecutions have ever been brought successfully. Furthermore, all have been against small companies, rather than large organisations such as those involved in the tragedies that I mentioned.

Katy Clark: Several of the families who believe that criminal prosecutions should have been brought in the cases of their loved ones who have been killed in incidents in workplaces are in the Public Gallery today—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is not normal practice to refer to people outside the Chamber when addressing the House.

Katy Clark: I appreciate that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I simply wished to ask whether my right hon. Friend and his colleagues would be willing to meet families who have real experience of how the current system is failing.

John Reid: As my hon. Friend points out, a great range of people have an interest in the objective that we share today. Some of them come from the trade union movement, but the concern of many has been provoked by personal bereavement and grief. I hope that the Bill's introduction will give them some consolation, small though it may be. We will try to address the points raised and to meet some of those who have a direct interest in the issue. If I cannot personally do so, I know that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), will. In fact, I congratulate my hon. Friend on the persistence with which he has pursued this issue. He was centrally involved in the discussions in Warwick on this issue and he has met many people to hear their stories. I am sure that he will be the first to make himself available to meet anyone who wishes to meet me if, in the short term, I cannot do so. I hope that that will apply to anyone who wishes to raise matters with us.

Simon Hughes: The Home Secretary knows that many colleagues have waited a long time for such a measure. I was one of those who represented the Marchioness relatives and survivors. Many urban Members have represented the relatives of those who worked in the construction industry and lost their lives. Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that the penalties for which the Bill provides, especially for the large corporations, will be sufficient to ensure that the change of law is understood and that the practice of our big companies changes as a result of the Bill's enactment?

John Reid: The extent of the fines should have some effect. The fines provision is for unlimited fines, which is appropriate. One of the big changes is that people will be able to see that not only the gross negligence, beyond reasonable doubt, of one or more persons, but the systemic failings or gross negligence in a company, beyond those at the top, can be taken into account when making a judgment. I hope that a combination of that expansion of scope and the unlimited nature of the fines will provoke better conduct and better concern on everyone's part.

Dominic Grieve: Now is perhaps an opportunity to raise an issue that I had intended to mention later. How does the Home Secretary envisage providing guidelines to differentiate the levels of fines that are currently imposed under sections 2 and 3 of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 and the fines that will be imposed for corporate manslaughter, given that both are unlimited in the Crown court and that all the most serious cases end up there?

John Reid: Basically, as we are considering a corporate offence, imprisonment will not be an option because individuals will not answer on behalf of any company or corporate organisation except in a legal capacity. Fines will be unlimited and one would expect substantial fines for the sort of offence that we are considering. Of course, high fines have already been imposed in serious cases. For example, in the Balfour Beatty case, the fine was more than £7 million. Railtrack was fined £3.5 million in the Hatfield case. I believe that Transco was fined approximately £15 million for health and safety breaches. When we can bring such cases under existing law, that shows the seriousness with which the courts take them. However, the unlimited nature of the fines and their ability to be imposed without the need to prove individual liability, but taking into account systemic failures in the company or corporate organisation as a whole, is a sufficient combination to act as a deterrent to anyone who would conduct themselves in a fashion that would put people at risk.

Lorely Burt: Will the Home Secretary give way?

John Reid: If I may make a little progress, I promise to give way to the hon. Lady later.
	Companies and other organisations must be held properly to account for gross corporate negligence that has led to loss of life. It is not enough for those failings to be punished under health and safety law. That is, to some extent, a response to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve). We want to give victims and their families the justice of seeing an organisation properly held to account for corporate manslaughter, and not only individual responsibility. We want organisations, corporations and incorporated institutions to be held to account for actions that have led to deaths, sometimes on a massive scale.
	I do not think that I can do better than to quote the mother of a young person killed at work. In evidence to the Home Affairs and Work and Pensions Committees, she said:
	"A successful prosecution brings into the public domain all the failings that led to a preventable death and, very importantly, it shows that this country values all human life and is prepared to punish those who are negligent or indifferent to the lives of workers."
	I believe that that encapsulates the feelings that many in this House have expressed.

Helen Jones: rose—

James Duddridge: rose—

Martin Salter: rose—

John Reid: I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt).

Lorely Burt: On punishment and fines, will the Home Secretary explain why directors can be disqualified for gross breach of duty in respect of shareholders' investments, but not in respect of human lives?

John Reid: I do not think that that is correct. People can already be held to account for gross negligence that results in the loss of life, or in any other substantial loss, although a certain level of proof is required. The Bill introduces the concept of corporate manslaughter, which means that a corporate organisation can be held to account if its systemic and institutionalised failures and negligence across a range of activities are shown to have led to a death.
	I will go further than that. If the House passes this Bill, it will be possible to take a corporate organisation to court, expose it to public scrutiny and impose on it a guilty verdict and a substantial, unlimited fine, while individuals can be tried simultaneously for gross negligence leading to manslaughter. The hon. Lady's premise is therefore wrong and I assure her that the Bill will not diminish the right to deal with individuals.

Dominic Grieve: Will the Home Secretary give way?

John Reid: I shall give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones) and then to the hon. Gentleman.

Helen Jones: My right hon. Friend is right to argue that all people deserve the protection of the law in this matter, but the Bill makes an exception for unincorporated bodies, such as large partnerships. Will he undertake to look again at the matter in Committee, given that it is already possible—under the Companies Act 1985, for example—for such bodies to be prosecuted? We need to provide equal protection for all employees, regardless of the nature of the organisation that employs them.

John Reid: It will, of course, be possible to look at all such matters, including that one, during the House's deliberations on the Bill. The current law does not extend to unincorporated bodies. Evidence from the Health and Safety Executive indicates that only 2 per cent. of the prosecutions that it mounts are against unincorporated bodies—

Dominic Grieve: indicated dissent.

John Reid: I am talking about the Bill before the House today. I hope that that helps the hon. Gentleman to calm down.
	The evidence is that only 2 per cent. of HSE prosecutions are taken out against unincorporated bodies. We can discuss the matter that my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North raises, but typically the bodies to which she refers are smaller businesses such as building firms, sole traders and so on. Individual prosecutions are likely to be possible in cases involving such bodies, and in fact most individual prosecutions have been brought against the very firms to which she has referred. There is a gap, as I think the whole House accepts, in taking larger incorporated organisations to task for systemic failures across the organisation that have sometimes resulted in a considerable number of deaths, as I pointed out. That is where we have concentrated our efforts.

Several hon. Members: rose—

John Reid: I should like to make a little progress. I have been speaking for 19 minutes but I have reached only page 7 of 24. I will attempt to move on quickly.
	The Government are determined to make corporate manslaughter laws just, and the Bill aims to create a clear and effective criminal offence. Our approach is based on recommendations from the Law Commission and on extensive consultation, including with trade unions, industry and those representing the victims of work-related death, although I realise that we have not agreed on everything in those consultations. In particular, I am indebted to my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) and members of the Select Committees on Home Affairs and on Work and Pensions who carefully scrutinised the legislation in draft. We have adopted a number of the Committees' recommendations, although not in every particular, and they have had an important influence on the final shape of the Bill in several areas.
	What the Bill does can be stated simply. The new offence of corporate manslaughter represents an advance in two major ways. First, it provides a new test for the application of the corporate manslaughter offence to companies that will allow the courts to look at collective management failure within an organisation, thus enabling, for the first time, a proper examination of corporate negligence, on the corporate scale.
	The Bill goes further and, secondly, removes Crown immunity. That is a far-reaching and historic development. For the first time, Departments and other Crown bodies will be liable to prosecution in the criminal courts. I understand that there is an argument about the extent and scope of the measure, but I hope that we have got it right by excluding public policy matters. Nevertheless, this will be a major step in removing Crown immunity from Departments and other Crown bodies.
	On the test for liability, the new offence of corporate manslaughter radically modifies the law. It moves away from the question of who managed the company to the question of how the fatal activity was managed—a significant shift that is more than mere semantics. No longer will a successful prosecution depend on proving gross negligence by isolated individuals. Prosecutors will be able, for the first time, to focus on collective failure, as I said earlier.

Stewart Hosie: Will the Home Secretary give way?

John Reid: In a second.
	As the intention is to target truly corporate negligence, however, it would be wrong if organisations were prosecuted on the basis of isolated or unrelated management failings at relatively low levels of the organisation. For that reason, the new offence requires there to have been gross failure by senior managers. Again, I understand that people will want to discuss that point during our deliberations and we shall always be prepared to undertake such scrutiny and will be able to go some way— [ Interruption. ]—I shall give way when I have finished this point.
	When we published the Bill in the summer, many people, including the scrutiny Committee, felt that the test of liability was too narrowly drawn and that the new offence might as a consequence fail to rebalance the law in the direction of corporate rather than individual negligence. It is critical that the new offence has public confidence, so we are taking those objections seriously and will table amendments in Committee. I will write to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) and to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) and their colleagues shortly to outline our proposals in greater detail, but I hope that at least on this issue they will go some way towards meeting the reservations expressed when we introduced the Bill.

David Howarth: Will the Home Secretary give way?

John Reid: I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) and then to the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Stewart Hosie).

Martin Salter: The Home Secretary will be aware that, in October 1999, 31 people died in the horrific Paddington train crash and that many more were seriously injured, including a number of my constituents. After pleading guilty to health and safety offences, Thames Trains got away with a £2 million fine. That is a fraction of the money that the directors made from the two management buy-outs that have occurred since rail privatisation. If this very welcome measure had been on the statute book at the time of the Paddington disaster, what different outcomes could the survivors of that crash have expected?

John Reid: I agree very much with what my hon. Friend says, and two provisions would be particularly relevant to the case that he mentions. We have already discussed the first of those provisions—unlimited fines—and the second is, of course, that on remedial orders. Fines and compensation orders are usually the most effective ways to penalise companies that are found guilty of criminal offences, but I fully recognise that financial penalties alone—the point that he makes—may not always be enough to change undesirable business behaviour.
	Of course, alternative sanctions have been explored, because the issue goes wider than just corporate manslaughter. The Macrory review is conducting a comprehensive investigation into corporate sanctions. Its final report is due out this autumn and will identify a number of options, including corporate rehabilitation orders, community projects and publicity orders. However, the unlimited fines and the remedial orders in clause 10 are particularly appropriate to the subject that my hon. Friend raises.

Dominic Grieve: I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way on this point, because the clause on remedial orders is the only one that seems to be entirely otiose. Under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, the availability of prohibition and improvement notices is so powerful a regime that I find it very difficult to understand how a remedial order can possibly add anything to the powers available to the Health and Safety Executive. I say this in a spirit of conciliation, but I do not think that we should put on to the statute book orders that, in fact, will have no practical significance, because such powers already exist.

John Reid: We certainly believe that we are supplementing and adding to the measures that the hon. Gentleman mentions, but this is a perfectly legitimate issue for discussion and deliberation during the passage of the Bill. However, we would not be taking this action if we did not think that it added another dimension to that which already exists.

Stewart Hosie: The Home Secretary will be aware that, as a result of a Sewel motion, the Bill covers Scotland, and he has mentioned collective failure on a number of occasions. What is the practical difference between the Bill and the current Scottish position, whereby it is possible to convict a company of a common law crime if the prosecution identifies a group of individuals collectively who were deemed to be the company's controlling mind, whose acts could be said to be those of the company and who were guilty of that crime? What practical improvement will the Bill provide?

John Reid: The hon. Gentleman will know the history. An expert group was set up in Scotland, and the Scottish Executive and the Government amicably decided that the matter would be more appropriately dealt with under health and safety legislation. Of course, that is an issue with which we deal, but we have listened very carefully in framing our general Bill to address the points that were made in Scotland.
	The hon. Gentleman talks about a group of individuals. I understand, although I will stand corrected in correspondence with him, that it must be illustrated that each individual in that group bears responsibility. Our understanding is that the Bill will supplement that dimension by allowing the consideration of the institutionalised, systemic fact of failings at a lateral level, not just among the top people and not just where individual responsibility can be illustrated in every case. If the Bill were to become law and a systemic failure occurred, it could be taken into account when considering a breach of the law.
	As I told the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) in answering the last question, the Bill adds a dimension and supplements and strengthens the existing law, although I am, of course, aware that there are those in Scotland, as there are those in England, who want us to go further. Although we think that we have got the balance right, we will, of course, listen during the passage of the Bill.

David Howarth: rose—

Edward Davey: rose—

Michael Clapham: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

John Reid: Yes, I will, but there are two Members on the Liberal Front Bench, and I like to hear both points of view from the Liberals.

Hon. Members: All three.

David Howarth: Yes, all three. May I return the Home Secretary to the question of the test for liability and ask him to address another possible weakness in the way that the provision has been set out? The test for liability connects the crime of gross negligence with the duty of care in civil law. Does that mean that the crime that we are discussing today would not apply in the cases of the cockle pickers or the 58 illegal immigrants who died in the back of a lorry? The courts might well say that there was no civil duty of care in those cases.

John Reid: No, I do not think so. We have retained the duty of care because it is already extant in law and because we believe it would reinforce the case against employers. Indeed, when being briefed on the Bill, I asked what would happen if a train that crashed after coming off the tracks killed not only passengers—the company would clearly have a duty of care to them—but bystanders. The legal advice on the Bill that I have received is that if that could reasonably have been foreseen, the duty of care would still apply in that case. I do not think that the position is quite as simple as the hon. Gentleman makes out. The retention of the duty of care is intended to strengthen the Bill rather than weaken it.

Edward Davey: I hope that the Home Secretary can write to my hon. Friend to clarify that because we believe that the case of Wacker  v. Regina suggests that the Home Secretary's advice to date would not cover the case of the cockle pickers.
	May I take the Home Secretary back to the important point that he made a few minutes ago when he said that he would write to those on both Opposition Front Benches about the test in the Bill with respect to senior managers? It is important that he give the House a little more indication of what changes the Government have in mind on that point, as it is fairly crucial to whether the Bill will have the effect that the Government claim it will. Many people have commented on the Bill, which suggests that the senior manager test will have the same identification problem as the previous common law offence. Can the Home Secretary assure the House that the test will be got rid of and that the provision will apply in respect of failure by the corporation as a whole, as opposed to failure by just senior managers?

John Reid: I cannot assure the hon. Gentleman that the test will be got rid of. However, in the spirit of compromise to which we are always urged by the Liberal Democrats, I can say that we are looking at the issue again. As I said earlier, this is one of the points about which we want to write to him and his colleagues, as well as to Her Majesty's official Opposition, with a view to widening the test. When we introduced it in the summer, I recognise that people had reservations about it, so we are prepared to consider it again.
	I express no view on the case of the cockle pickers, but I tried to be clear that we did not accept the need to remove the test on duty of care. It is the basis for the current law and we do not see a compelling case for changing it. I merely point out that the offence will often involve a failure to act—not just an action, but a sin of omission as well as a sin of commission—and the provision needs to be underpinned by a duty to act. It strengthens the case in illustrating a failure to act if it is possible to point out that there was a duty to act in a certain fashion in the first place. That is why we believe the provision strengthens the Bill.

Jim Sheridan: rose—

Michael Clapham: rose—

John Reid: I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham), but then I will try to make a little progress—otherwise, I will get into terrible trouble.

Michael Clapham: The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) referred to prohibition orders under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 and suggested that there was probably no reason to have remedial orders, but are not remedial orders much more than prohibition orders? We are looking at systemic failing and even the possibility of looking at the method of work. In a difficult situation—for example, a complex situation of construction—one might even take into consideration the entire system of work with a remedial order. That would not be possible with prohibition orders.

John Reid: My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. That is precisely the point that I was trying to make. What we are suggesting goes beyond—it supplements—the prohibition orders that were mentioned earlier. Of course, we can discuss all that in Committee, but our understanding and our intention is to strengthen the existing position and to add to it, rather than just to replicate it.
	I will summarise the points so far. Rather than framing the new offence solely in terms of the way an incident was managed by senior managers, we will reframe the test so that it takes into account the management of the fatal activity generally within the organisation. That is the point that was raised. However, the test would not allow a prosecution to succeed unless a substantial element of the organisation's failure lay at a relatively senior management level. I accept that that is a point of balance, but it is something that we are willing to discuss. I also think that that will provide a more flexible approach than is currently in the Bill, because the test will encompass all aspects of the way in which an activity was managed in an organisation. But it will still need to be shown that a large part of the failure lay in the way in which the senior management of the organisation exercised responsibility. That will ensure that the offence remains targeted on truly corporate failings, rather than just individual failings.
	As regards gross failure, the new offence is not about replacing health and safety laws or turning every work-related death into a corporate manslaughter prosecution. The offence will be reserved for the worst cases of corporate management failures. Failings will need to be gross: in other words, fall far below the acceptable standards. That is the test for manslaughter in other walks of life and it is right that it should be the test for corporate manslaughter.
	In deciding a case—in judging gross failure—the jury will have to look at how far the organisation is in breach of its health and safety duties. That grounds the new offence firmly in the clearly established framework for managing health and safety with which employers are already familiar. So no one can say that there is a complete blank sheet and that people have to start learning practices and procedures, and the organisation of their corporate responsibility in a completely new fashion.
	Nor is the Bill about increasing the regulatory burden on business. It will be well known by now—after nine years of this Government—that our economic strength is underpinned by the valuable contribution made to our society by employers and industry. They have the right to operate unburdened by unnecessary red tape. But employers have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their employees. That is part of the balance of social justice, along with a dynamic economy, that has always been a mark of the Government. The safety of employees is supplemented by what organisations owe to their customers and others affected by their activities. The offence of corporate manslaughter will hold accountable those organisations that show a clear disregard for the health and safety of any of those.

Rob Marris: In passing, I declare an interest as a member of the Transport and General Workers Union whose constituency receives money from the trade union solicitors Thompsons.
	In terms of what the Bill is trying to do, I am sure that my right hon. Friend would agree that prevention is better than cure, although sometimes we have to go down the cure route, as we are. I put it to him that if he were a member of a senior management team of an organisation employing people, he would be a little more careful in making sure that there was not a systemic breach of health and safety requirements if he himself were at risk of a custodial sentence. He would take more care and prevention would be better. I urge him to look again at that as a deterrent effect—as a preventive measure.

John Reid: May I respond fraternally to my hon. Friend and fellow member of the Transport and General Workers Union by saying that I have already pointed out that an individual director or manager who can be proven to be guilty of gross negligence can, at the moment, be prosecuted for gross negligence and manslaughter in that way? So at the moment, there is nothing to prohibit that, and nor does anything in the Bill prohibit it; it can still be achieved. The Bill supplements that by stating that, even where that individual cannot be shown himself to have acted with gross negligence, nevertheless, if he and others in the senior management have acted in such a way that a systemic failure across the organisation has resulted in death and destruction on a significant scale, they ought, in addition to the individual responsibility, to be open to the corporation's being fined or faced with a remedial order. Of course, it is "corporate" manslaughter, so individuals are not held responsible; rather, the incorporated institution itself is.

Several hon. Members: rose—

John Reid: I give way to the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow).

John Bercow: I am very grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way. Stopping slightly short of the point advanced by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), it nevertheless occurs to me that, in cases where senior managers responsible—at least in part—for such systemic failure are directors of the company, no provision appears to be made in the Bill for their disqualification from continuing as company directors. If I am correct in that surmise, is the Home Secretary working on the assumption that, in the most extreme cases, corporate embarrassment will probably suffice to remove such individuals from their posts? If not, upon what basis is he working?

John Reid: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue, and I am obviously not getting the point through. It is already the case that directors can be disqualified if they are convicted of an offence related to the management of the company, and that includes health and safety offences. It is already the case that a director can face other penalties, as an individual. What the Bill does is to make the corporation liable to penalties, which is why the term "corporate" manslaughter is used. It supplements the existing law, which allows cases to be brought against, and penalties imposed on, directors as individuals.
	On directors' duties, which is a different issue, we are not further extending our consideration of those duties—quite apart from the fact that that is the territory of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, rather than mine—because the matter has already been taken up. The Health and Safety Commission has considered this very issue and it has asked the Health and Safety Executive to produce new guidance precisely on directors' responsibilities. The HSC will return to this issue in the light of developments on corporate manslaughter, of the report from Professor Macrory—the Macrory penalties review—and of the introduction of statutory directors' duties under the Companies Bill. In short, directors are already liable to punishment and disqualification in the way that was asked for earlier, and directors' duties are already being examined elsewhere, separately from this Bill; there may be developments in that regard. In addition, we are introducing the offence of corporate manslaughter, so that the institution of which the person concerned is a director can also be held responsible.

Several hon. Members: rose—

John Reid: If I may, I shall make a little progress and then come back to my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, North (Jim Sheridan), who tried to intervene some time ago.
	In turning to the application of the law and the question of who can commit the new offence, I want to deal with two issues: the restriction of the offence to organisations, not individuals; and how the offence applies to some public bodies. I think that I said enough on the question of individuals when answering the last question, but the Bill's innovative aspect lies in its attempt to ensure corporate accountability. Often, responsibility is not capable of being laid at the door of one person, but lies with the corporate body overall, which is why we have introduced this Bill. Evidence given by the HSC to the scrutiny Committees identified that many incidents arose from systemic failures, rather than from the culpability of the actions of one individual. The new offence reflects that reality. It is a reality that all working people know in practice: very often, such situations do not just come down to one culpable director, but there are systemic failures that run through a corporation and that are not remedied, despite the fact that the corporation at all levels is constantly told about them by the worker, and that results in damage or death to people who work for that corporation—or, indeed, to its consumers.
	This framework would not be improved by introducing secondary liability. If individuals have acted recklessly or grossly negligently or in a way that contravenes health and safety law, they will be guilty of a criminal offence under existing laws. That is the current position. The new offence is intended to sit beside those offences and provide a more effective means of attributing manslaughter to companies and corporate organisations. It is not a part of that aim for the offence to be a vehicle for extending or redefining when individuals are guilty of offences.

Jim Sheridan: I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way, and at this stage it might be appropriate to remind ourselves that without a Labour Government, the Bill, warts and all, would never have seen the light of day.
	Most of these fatalities and injuries take place in the construction industry. My right hon. Friend will be aware that many migrant workers are now employed in that industry, and many of them cannot read or understand English, thereby putting their own lives and those of others in danger. Is there any provision in the Bill that will force employers to train and educate their employees to read and understand English, and in particular health and safety law?

John Reid: I am glad that I gave way to my hon. Friend. In the midst of the questions that are being asked, it is heartening to realise that there is a widespread recognition that, whatever our qualifications and reservations, people feel that the Bill is long overdue. I am also delighted that those comments were made because I know that my hon. Friend was involved in the Bill on gangmasters and has long been a supporter of taking action in this area.
	My hon. Friend raised an extremely important point about migrant workers and those who do not have access to the English language and to certain documents. We are working on that; we are trying to ensure that we provide sufficient advice on matters such as those that my hon. Friend raised, in order to bring them to the attention of those who do not read and write English in the way that some of us do—although, for all I know, they might speak English as well as some of us do. However, we are looking into that.
	On Crown immunity, the new offence will apply to Government Departments and other Crown bodies. For the first time, those bodies will be liable to prosecution for a criminal offence. It removes the anomaly created by Crown immunity and means that the public sector and the private sector will have the same liability under the new offence. That is a historic step.
	There is no good reason why Government Departments should be in a different position from their private sector counterparts for their responsibilities as employers or for securing the safety of their premises. These responsibilities are covered comprehensively by the offence for all employers. But there are exemptions, because there are differences between the Crown and other public authorities on the one side and the private sector on the other, and they are differences that demand recognition.
	Public bodies already operate within a strong framework of standards and accountability. Ministers are responsible to the electorate via Parliament, and fatalities can lead to public inquiries and other independent investigations. Public bodies are subject to specific obligations such as the Human Rights Act 1998, and their actions are open to challenge through specific mechanisms, including judicial review. Although this Bill provides a step towards equalising the approach in the public and private sectors, there are nevertheless differences between them because there is already a series of scrutiny mechanisms that apply to the public sector.

Gwyn Prosser: The Home Secretary has made a number of references to the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise. I remember that tragedy well, because I was sailing on cross-channel ferries at the time, and representing merchant navy officers in a union. But is it not the fact that, for all the gross incompetence and gross negligence that took place before and during that incident—the systemic disease of sloppiness that the judge talked about—if this Bill had been enacted by then, although the company corporate would have had a very high fine, the result would have been that the acquisition of the company by P&O might have happened faster and the changeover would have taken place, but the senior directors and responsible managers would have walked away scot-free?

John Reid: I do not think that that would happen under this proposed legislation. That is why it is an improvement. However, it is true that the number of cases that have previously been brought under corporate manslaughter in the absence of this proposed legislation is very small indeed; there have been about seven since 1992, and all of the companies involved have been very small. So to that extent I very much take on board the point that my hon. Friend makes.
	I must now give way to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), and then I shall attempt to make some progress.

Dominic Grieve: I thank the Home Secretary for giving way. Can I raise a point about public authorities? The Home Secretary makes a perfectly valid point in saying that there might be particular problems with public authorities in the exercise of some of their functions, but people will find the following situation rather strange in respect of individuals within an organisation: for instance, a hospital doctor might be prosecuted for manslaughter and it emerges in the course of the case that there were systemic failures in his training, and, as I understand it, the health trust responsible for that would escape prosecution under these provisions. I hope that we can look at that area again. Similarly, a police authority or force could escape prosecution for failings of their officers leading to the death of an individual. It seems to me that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and if we are holding individuals to account in such circumstances, it is very strange if we do not provide a mechanism within corporate manslaughter legislation that also allows the authorities to be held to account.

John Reid: I am not able to give legal advice to the hon. Gentleman off the top of my head, but I shall risk advising him that I think that he is probably wrong in respect of the health trust, but not on the police. However, I will write to him if my current advice is wrong.  [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) shouts from a sedentary position that that was spoken like a true lawyer.
	While it is true that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, it is by definition also true that a goose is different from a gander, and in this case public bodies and Government Departments are different from private organisations. Private organisations have different responsibilities, but they are not subject to the strong mechanisms for accountability and scrutiny to which public bodies are already accountable. All deaths in custody are subject in public bodies to an independent investigation. The prisons and police and others have separate ombudsmen, who report publicly, and very often to Parliament. There is an Independent Police Complaints Commission, for example. All deaths in custody are also subject to coroners' inquest in public, with a jury. Individual criminal proceedings and disciplinary processes are available in appropriate cases, and that is only in respect of the police and the criminal justice system, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Therefore there are a huge number of mechanisms that already scrutinise public bodies and Government Departments, but that do not do so in the case of private organisations. That is recognised in the Bill by not applying exactly the same rules and regulations to public and private sectors.
	I maintain however that the removal of Crown immunity is an historic, unprecedented step. The hon. Gentleman might point out that in his view it does not go entirely far enough, but it is a step that we have been waiting not only decades, but in many cases centuries, to achieve, and I would not want anyone to diminish the importance of the fact that we have removed that immunity.
	I now wish to make a little progress.

John Bercow: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

John Reid: I have been very generous to Members, and I think that if I were to start on a second round of giving way, we would still be stuck here by the time the vote is cast. I think that I have now pointed out the differences.
	We have continually considered carefully exactly how the exemptions in the Bill should be framed. We will want to make several refinements to the Bill in Committee, although I do not claim that they will be extensive. I will write to Opposition spokesmen and their colleagues to keep them informed of the refinements as soon as I can.
	The Bill is limited, yet important. I do not claim that it will do everything that everyone wants—that is why I say that it is limited—but I do claim that it is important in several significant ways. I believe that it will meet a specific failing in our criminal law. It will enshrine in law a more effective offence of corporate manslaughter that will properly target corporate failures and, for the first time, it will remove Crown immunity. In short, the Bill will make justice possible for those who are killed at work owing to gross corporate negligence. It can never remedy those losses or compensate for the bereavement that individuals and families have suffered, but I hope that it will go some way towards meeting their claim that justice ought to be extended right across the spectrum when it is demanded as a result of corporate culpability. I thus commend the Bill to the House.

Dominic Grieve: May I first declare a personal interest, over and above being a member of the Bar? Health and safety at work has been my specialist field of practice for some years, and as it remains the only area in which I really practise at the Bar, the Bill has a direct professional relevance to me.
	I have no doubt at all that the Government's intentions are commendable. From my experience of practising in the field, and especially of prosecuting for the Health and Safety Executive, which I did quite a lot before entering the House in the 1990s, I have no doubt about the gravity of several of the offences with which I dealt, and the poor reflection that those cases revealed of, especially, the operation of public companies and corporations and others. I am also aware of the anguish caused by death in any setting, and certainly by the unnecessary deaths caused by industrial accidents or by the activities of someone carrying out an undertaking. I echo the Home Secretary's remarks about those who have campaigned to determine whether improvements to the law could be made.
	I am also of the view that there is scope for change and improvement. As the Bill goes through Parliament, Conservative Members will certainly do what we can to co-operate with the Government to determine the aspects on which improvements can be made. I shall touch on one or two of those as I proceed with my remarks, and I look forward to considering the Bill in Committee, because we have the capacity to produce something of value.
	The problem that the Government have faced with the Bill—I hope that I am not being too unkind to the Home Secretary when I say that it was reflected in the slight hesitancy of some of his remarks—is that, as so often happens, they are caught between a rock and a hard place. The Government wish to improve our body of legislation, which would be of value, but at the same time they have very properly not been prepared to be pushed or bulldozed by those who want the introduction of draconian legislation, especially in terms of penalties on individuals, that would go outside the scope of our normal principles of law.
	I entirely agree with the Home Secretary that we must deal with corporate manslaughter. The only fair way in which to deal with manslaughter allegations against individuals, with custodial sentences being imposed if transgression is shown, is under the existing framework of the manslaughter law. If we were to start departing from that—some have suggested that we should—it would quickly become apparent that people would be treated unjustly. It should not be the role of Parliament to do that, however tempting it might sometimes be.
	Having taken that decision and gone on to examine the problem of fixing corporations with allegations of manslaughter, which is inherent, and of which we know from the case of the Herald of Free Enterprise, which the Home Secretary and others cited, it seems that the Government have tried very hard to keep the notion of corporate manslaughter and produce a new framework that will enable corporations to be convicted. However, they face the problem of having ended up with a Bill about which it is at least legitimate to raise the question: what does it add to our existing laws in practical terms? I shall concentrate especially on that point, but before I do so I want to consider several of the Bill's details and flag up for the Home Secretary some areas at which we will need to look carefully.
	The Home Secretary made it clear that the Bill is aimed at corporations. That makes it different from the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, which is a much wider measure under which it is quite common to prosecute unincorporated associations without difficulty. Indeed, shortly before I became a Member of the House, I was involved in the prosecution of an unincorporated association: Lloyd's Register of Shipping. Having seen not only the seriousness of that case, which was about the port Ramsgate walkway collapse in which seven people were killed, but the size of Lloyd's Register of Shipping and the importance of its role in certifying new engineering structures concerned with the marine environment, I rather disagreed with the Home Secretary when it was suggested that unincorporated associations might not be an important element in ensuring health and safety at work. Of course, I also accept that in many cases unincorporated associations are likely to be small organisations, but if ever the Home Secretary wanted an example of an unincorporated organisation that is not small, there is one. I am bound to say that I am a bit worried about the prospect of putting on the statute book legislation that cannot encompass such an organisation, so I hope that we will be able to consider that during the Bill's passage.
	The Home Secretary properly identified the fact that the Bill includes important innovations. The removal of Crown immunity from Government Departments is welcome and a much-needed change. However, I was a little worried to note that the relevant schedule could be added to or taken away from by way of the negative procedure. That was not because I thought that the Home Secretary was suddenly going to say that he wanted to remove bodies from the list—although that would always be possible—but because if we are going to get the Bill right, we must decide at the outset who we are aiming it at. I thus have serious reservations about using the negative procedure to change the list. We need to use the affirmative procedure.
	We have touched on the whole issue of public authorities. The Home Secretary was quite right when he said that I might be wrong about the NHS health trust in the context in which I put my point to him. Having read the Bill, I am just not sure. If someone were put on a health trust trolley that collapsed and caused the person to suffer a serious injury, I have little doubt that the health trust could be responsible. If a patient falls down a staircase or is injured in a lift, it is clear that, as an occupier of premises, the trust will be covered by the legislation. However, the position is rather less clear to me when it comes to, for example, the training of medical staff. In a case in which I had a peripheral involvement, some junior hospital doctors were prosecuted for manslaughter for killing a patient. They were very junior and their circumstances were such that there might be some degree of public sympathy for them, but serious criticism was made of the health trust for the manner in which it had looked after the doctors and provided them with supervision and training.
	At present, that matter is certainly covered by the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act, but would it be covered by the Bill? I do not know. The Home Secretary might be able to intervene and tell me straight away that I am worrying about nothing, but it seems to me that that case reveals the grey area between direct activities, such as running premises, and public policy issues, such as whether enough money was spent on the doctors' training. We shall have to focus and concentrate on that matter.

Rob Marris: Now that the hon. Gentleman has finished that section on the health service, may I take him back to the question of amendments to schedule 1 and the procedure for making them? He and I clearly read clause 19 differently. The negative procedure is used in relation to amendments that fall within subsection (3)— for example, if the Department changes its name, as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister did. Otherwise, the affirmative procedure applies under subsection (2). If my reading of the clause is correct—of course, it is subject to correction—the hon. Gentleman's fears are groundless.

Dominic Grieve: The hon. Gentleman may well be right. We can consider the matter in Committee, and if that phrasing is considered to be reassurance enough, I shall be wholly content. I read subsequent paragraphs of clause 19(3) as putting a gloss on that, but perhaps I am becoming too cynical. I am grateful to have my faith in human nature restored by the hon. Gentleman.

Peter Bottomley: In Committee, my hon. Friend may want to give further consideration to his point about whether a failure to spend enough money would be covered by the Bill. I think that the Home Secretary, to whom we are grateful for presenting the Bill himself, would say that not spending enough money is not in itself sufficient, and that gross negligence is needed.
	The context of the debate is the heart-rending events that have affected members of the public, or people who have been passengers, or employees of organisations, but we ought to recognise that, because of our tripartite approach over the decades and the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act, this country has a lower level of death and injury at work than most other countries, and we are trying to improve our record. We are not the worst.

Dominic Grieve: I agree entirely. I was going to make that point when discussing the current operation of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act. My hon. Friend is correct: our record on industrial accidents is not bad at all. Indeed, the pattern of deaths and injuries in the workplace shows a consistent diminution, which is greatly to the credit of the activities of the Health and Safety Executive.

John Reid: I hesitate to intervene in a disquisition between three such learned and honourable Gentlemen. If I am wrong I shall write to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), but my understanding is that in the case he mentioned, the health trust would be covered as a trust. It would not be outwith the scope of the Bill; it would be covered as an incorporated body. As for the scope of its actions that would be covered by the Bill, budgetary allocations would be excluded, but the nature of the training would be included. If it could be shown that there was gross negligence in the doctors' training, the trust would have a corporate responsibility.

Dominic Grieve: I am grateful to the Home Secretary; that is indeed reassuring. I raised the question because it troubled me when I read the Bill, and because it illustrates the fact that the Bill deals with a complex area of law. Having been picked up by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), I would be the last to pretend that one reading of the Bill has enabled me to become a master of every aspect of its detail.
	I have touched on the issue of the activities of the police. Some people will be puzzled about the extent to which the police will or will not be subject to the operation of the legislation. We will have to examine that matter further.
	The real nub of what the Government have attempted to do lies specifically in trying to maintain in the Bill the principle that this is corporate manslaughter. In its original proposals, the Law Commission suggested that the duty of care test on which the entire edifice will rest was a mistake. It took the view that that was a civil concept, which translated only with difficulty into the field of criminal justice.
	On reading the Bill—no doubt I shall reread it and re-reread it—I was mystified to see how the Government were adding extra complexity, which does not exist in relation to common-law manslaughter, by providing a split role of judge and jury in which the judge makes, in effect, a civil ruling on whether the duty of care existed, and only after that does the jury make the decision on whether a breach has occurred. One of the points on which we shall require clarification—perhaps in the winding-up speeches, but certainly in Committee—is how, procedurally, that will work in court. Is it to be a matter of the judge hearing all the evidence and then, prior to final submissions, making a ruling, or is the ruling to be made at half-time? Is the ruling to be appealable before the end of the trial, or is an appeal on whether there was a duty of care to take place only after the trial has reached a conclusion? I apologise to the House for becoming legally "techy", but whether the legislation will work hinges on whether we get the technical aspects right. I hope that we will hear some indication that the Government have given the matter some thought.
	Given that in ordinary common-law manslaughter cases juries have routinely been asked to consider issues of duty of care, as they have in respect of one person's responsibility toward another, I am a little surprised that consideration of that matter is now to be removed from the jury. Why are juries suddenly no longer to decide that question? My experience is that their common sense has usually ensured that such decisions are not difficult for them. I raise that question in the hope that we might have some answers.

James Clappison: May I ask my hon. Friend to bring his experience to bear on a matter that strikes me as relevant? I am thinking of cases in which there is a charge of corporate manslaughter against a corporate body and, in respect of the same events, a charge against an individual of ordinary manslaughter—if I can put it that way—through gross negligence, and perhaps offences relating to health and safety legislation? Does he see in the Bill's provisions any obstacles to all those matters being tried within the same trial, to enhance the administration of justice and save costs?

Dominic Grieve: My hon. Friend makes an important point. I doubt that it is possible to try all those charges together in one trial. In fact, I believe that one of the consequences of the Bill—I am jumping my own train of thought at this point—will be incredibly long and complex post-accident periods before final resolution of cases. I know that happens now: in some cases in which I have been involved it has been suggested that a charge of corporate manslaughter or manslaughter might be brought against an individual, the consequence of which has been to delay the health and safety prosecution by two, three or four years. That cannot be right for the relatives of the deceased, it leaves defendants in a state of uncertainty for prolonged periods—periods which one must be mindful of trying to minimise—and by the time the case comes to court, the public focus on the issue has almost completely gone.
	I do not mean this at all disparagingly, but I think that one of the reasons why the Government decided to stick to the concept of corporate manslaughter was their desire for the very words to heap opprobrium on corporations that are convicted.
	Long delay between the incident and conviction is clearly undesirable, yet the evidence from health and safety at work cases is that the delays, even without the addition of corporate manslaughter, are already very long. I hardly ever have a case that is not 12 or 18 months old by the time that it gets to court, and those are cases concerning routine deaths—if hon. Members will excuse the expression—without any technical complexity at all. Major trials with which I was involved in the 1990s took three, four or five years to reach court. I would very much like to reduce that period, but I fear that the consequence of the legislation will be to add to it. If there is anything that we can sensibly do to minimise that, we should consider it.
	Earlier, I mentioned remedial orders. After I made a remark that attracted a certain amount of controversy, the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) said that he thought that remedial orders would go further than existing measures. I do not think that that is the case, because the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 provides not only for prohibition notices but for improvement notices. May I remind hon. Members of the scope of improvement notices under section 21? It states:
	"If an inspector is of the opinion that a person...is contravening one or more of the relevant statutory provisions; or...has contravened one or more of those provisions in circumstances that make it likely that the contravention will continue or be repeated, he may serve on him a notice... requiring that person to remedy the contravention".
	Unless the Home Secretary can show me that the Bill will bite on organisations that are immune under the Act—I do not think that it will, but I am always prepared to stand corrected—I think that clause 10, although included, I am sure, with every good intention, is unnecessary and redundant. Remedial orders can be highly technical, and many a trial judge might be rather unwilling to get involved with them, but at the conclusion of the trial, long before the judge could make any pronouncement on remedial orders, I would expect the Health and Safety Executive, which is not fettered by any prosecution, to intervene with the prohibition and improvement notices needed.

Andrew Dismore: I wish to raise two issues. First, Crown immunity still applies under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act, although it does not do so under the Bill; I think that it should not apply under the 1974 Act, but it does. Secondly, when the Health and Safety Executive issues an improvement or prohibition notice, it does not do so with any transparency. The decision is made by the agency behind doors. However, under the Bill the order will be made after a full trial in court, with all the evidence set out for the public to see. The decision will be made publicly by a High Court judge, who may, I suspect, sometimes be rather more robust than the Health and Safety Executive.

Dominic Grieve: I am not sure that I agree. There are two points to make. First, if an improvement or prohibition notice is contested, there is a hearing in front of an employment tribunal, which takes place in public. Secondly, in the majority of cases in which I have been involved, on sentencing it has been made perfectly clear in court that improvement and prohibition notices had been served—indeed, they often form part of the evidence in the case—and the public will have been made fully aware of the nature of the prohibition and improvement notices. Again, that is a matter that we can consider. It struck me when I first read the Bill that—with the caveat that the hon. Gentleman properly picked up on—if organisations covered by the Bill are not covered by the 1974 Act, remedial orders against a Government Department might have some relevance. We should be careful not to over-egg the pudding in that respect; otherwise, we give the public the impression that something highly novel is being introduced when it has been in place for a considerable time.

Jeremy Wright: I apologise to my hon. Friend if he is about to come on to this subject, but he will note that, under the Bill, if a remedial order were breached, penalties would be imposed. How does he think that a remedial order can be monitored, to determine whether or not it is being complied with? Obviously, it is easy for certain other penalties relating to criminal matters to be monitored to ascertain whether they are being complied with, but monitoring a remedial order probably requires a greater degree of technical expertise.

Dominic Grieve: My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, which ties in with the respective roles of the Health and Safety Executive, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police which, to my mind, remain somewhat opaque. That will be of key importance if the legislation is to have any force at all. A protocol governing the investigation of death is currently in force between the HSE, the CPS and the police, as even today there are occasions when the police and the CPS become involved because they believe that manslaughter proceedings may follow. May I tell the Home Secretary—this follows on from my earlier comment about length of time—that those are complicating features in the investigation of offences? I can only speak from my experience, but I say categorically that the moment that the police become involved in the investigation of a health and safety offence, the case takes considerable time, and in many instances I was left with the distinct impression that the required expertise is simply not available.
	I do not know how we will work our way around that. I note that in the submissions made to the Joint Committee, the Health and Safety Executive made it abundantly clear that it did not wish to become involved directly in bringing corporate manslaughter prosecutions, because it took the view that, given the complex construct that had been put together, it would not have the relevant expertise, and involvement would in fact inhibit its other work. That is the inference that I derived from its submissions. In those circumstances, how will the process be managed?
	To move on to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright), at the end of the process who will monitor the remedial order? I assume that it will be the Health and Safety Executive, because I cannot imagine anyone else being in a position to do so. We have, in the Health and Safety Executive, a reservoir of outstandingly good expertise, as I know from direct personal experience. It ranges across every area of industrial work and activity, whether the circumstances relate to the nuclear inspectorate, the rail inspectorate or, indeed, to more general concerns.
	It is worth bearing in mind, too, that many prosecutions brought under the 1974 Act are brought by local authorities, but they have great difficulty finding the expertise to bring those prosecutions. If a remedial order is imposed by a court, and it falls outside the Health and Safety Executive's responsibility because it applies to a warehouse—the operation of a warehouse does not fall within the Health and Safety Executive's remit—it is a case for a local authority. Some warehouses have thousands of square feet of storage, and adopt complex methods of operation. Who will supervise the remedial notice in those circumstances?

Rob Marris: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his generosity in giving way. I cannot remember, but my recollection is that most offences under the 1974 Act relating to prohibition orders are subject to a fine, which is on a scale. However, it appears from clause 10(4) that failure to comply with a remedial order could be subject to an unlimited fine. If I am right about that difference, it suggests that there is a difference between a remedial order and a prohibition order, in terms of the fine that can be levied for breach thereof. That would be a more powerful incentive for the employer.

Dominic Grieve: Yes, but the other way of looking at it is that under the 1974 Act someone who does not comply with an improvement notice will face the end of their business, full stop—they will no longer be allowed to operate. In all enforcement proceedings in the public sphere, history has shown that it is usually the threat of an injunction, whichever form it takes—in the civil courts or through a magistrates court—that ultimately brings about compliance, because such an injunction means that people can no longer earn their livelihoods and are put out of business, which they richly deserve if they do not comply with such orders.
	I have to say that I am not persuaded by these measures. I do not, with the single caveat about remedial orders applying to Government Departments, whereas improvement notices do not, see their advantage. It is worth pointing out that the Health and Safety Executive already issues improvement notices through the Crown procedure against Crown bodies and the use of Crown notices and censures—for example, 14 in 2003-04, 11 in 2000-01, and six in 2004-05. It also occasionally issues prohibition notices against Government Departments. That must have worked all right, otherwise we would have heard about it in this House. I would rather hope that the Government were complying with a procedure that they themselves had set up. To that extent, returning to the comments of the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), remedial orders may add very little to what is available in this setting.
	I want to return to the 1974 Act. I am conscious that the Government have already reached a decision in this respect—they have decided that they want the offence of corporate manslaughter—and I suppose that my hon. Friends and I will do our best to help them now that they have done so. However, my own instincts, including a desire to see rigorous application of health and safety in all spheres, make me wonder whether we have not made a mistake. In the 1974 Act, Lord Robens did this country a signal good service. It is a very well crafted piece of legislation. I have never heard it criticised except sometimes in relation to subsidiary regulations accused of being too onerous. The nub of the legislation itself has stood the test of time extremely well. The thing that it does, which the Bill does not do, is to simplify the law in terms of the duties of care owed by employers to their own employees and to those who might be affected by their undertakings in such a way that over the 30-year period of its operation there has been a series of important judgments whereby every weasel argument that employers can put forward to try to justify getting themselves off the hook—for example, passing the buck to subcontractors—has been completely and utterly eliminated.
	The 1974 Act is one of the most powerful and effective regulatory tools put on to the statute book by Government. Far from being limp in its impact, we can see that in recent years the fines imposed for serious accidents and death—unlimited in the Crown court—have risen stratospherically. The Home Secretary spoke of £7.5 million in relation to the Hatfield rail crash, but even for accidents that may not result from quite such a major disaster, large fines against corporations—hundreds of thousands of pounds for single deaths or even sometimes for the creation of risk—are routine. There is every sign that that trend is continuing upwards as a result of societal pressure to mark disapproval of those whose safety systems are inadequate.

Michael Clapham: In 2004, when there were just over 200 fatalities in industry—this past year, the figure is similar at 212—fines were just £43,000. The average fine was just over £3,000. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the instrument of the 1974 Act has helped to get to grips with problems in the workplace. Nevertheless, the fines that are imposed under that Act are so small that they do not deter employers at all. I should like the Home Secretary to bear that in mind.

Dominic Grieve: I am not certain that I agree. The difficulty is that if a large corporation such as a Tesco or a Sainsbury's kills an employee, a fine of millions of pounds may make little dent on its balance sheet. One of the problems that we have to face up to is that many of those prosecuted under the 1974 Act are individuals with very limited means. If a fine of £2 million is imposed because it marks the gravity of the offence, it will never be collected because there is nowhere near that amount to be collected. It is true that the company, in the case of a corporation, will be put out of business—indeed, there is authority in the Court of Appeal that says that in some cases that may be a very good thing to do—but unless that is the intention, the size of the fine becomes rather meaningless.
	Let me say to the Home Secretary, because it is important that the public should understand this, that I am very doubtful that, having introduced the new concept of corporate manslaughter, the fines imposed will be very different. I can see that in the case of major corporations it may be possible to impose a much higher fine and to say, "We are moving into the £20 million or £30 million range because as you are a multi-billion pound corporation we want to hurt you in your pocket." I, for one, have no difficulty with that. In many cases, however, as I am sure that the Home Secretary has been told, the companies prosecuted will be cowboy operators, individuals with very limited resources and companies whose only assets are, in effect, their annual turnover and profit. In those circumstances, courts will not impose multi-million pound fines, because they will be shown—as they are under the terms of the 1974 Act—balance sheets and the accounts of the company, and if they decide not to put it out of business, they will have to impose a fine that is commensurate with its ability to pay it. As has often been argued, in the case of public authorities the money that is levied as a fine takes from them the very money to carry out the necessary improvements to meet the standard that they should have delivered from the start.
	I have a question mark in my mind as to whether in reality we will find ourselves moving into a different fine regime. The danger is that we will end up with people who, having had their expectations raised, find themselves left with a feeling of distress and disappointment that the horror of what has happened to a near relative has not been responded to. I see no easy way out of that and therefore wonder whether we are not, in enacting this legislation, making unnecessary difficulties for ourselves. I endorse the point made before the Joint Committee—that we should have, under sections 2 and 3 of the 1974 Act, a separate aggravated offence of an act by which death results. There would then be some sentencing guidelines emphasising that much higher fines should be imposed in those circumstances, and we could see whether that works.
	However well-intentioned the Bill, the fact remains that conviction rates in prosecutions under the 1974 Act are some of the highest in any field of criminal justice—consistently more than 80 per cent. and in some cases closer to 90 per cent. in any 12-month period. That is because it is so drafted and interpreted that it imposes an arm-twist on any defendant from which they will have great difficulty in escaping. It worries me that, in contrast, this Bill seems very complicated. Having declared my interest at the outset, I cannot help wondering whether we are about to create another lawyers' bonanza.
	There is a risk, given the complexity of the issues of duty and care and breach—and the fact that corporations might be more reluctant to plead guilty because of the opprobrium attached to a manslaughter conviction—that we might end up with far more contested cases. Under health and safety at work legislation, a contested case relating to a major disaster can last for many weeks and cost a lot of money. It is true that that money can usually be recouped from the defendant, unlike in most criminal justice cases; even so, we ought to bear in mind such factors.
	Having said that, I am mindful that the Home Secretary has probably made up his mind on that point, but I shall nevertheless seek to explore it in Committee. At the end of the day, we should be concerned not about the words but about the results. Our aim should be to enact legislation that changes the attitudes of those who might be negligent, hits them selectively and properly in their pockets to encourage them to act with care, and produces a better sense of public justice. However, those three aims need to be kept in the balance, and the test of the Bill's success will not be what we say in the House, but whether it achieves those results.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Many Members wish to contribute to the debate, so I must ask them to exercise self-discipline and to make their remarks brief so that more Members may make a speech. I am thinking in particular of Back Benchers.

Andrew Dismore: Before I came to the House, I was a personal injury lawyer. Indeed, I suppose that I still am, although I no longer take any cases. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests.
	As a personal injury lawyer, I represented many families bereaved by avoidable accidents, including major incidents such as Zeebrugge and the King's Cross fire. Most of the cases, however, involved the deaths of individuals such as motorists, employees and pedestrians, which went unremarked in the press. But the feeling of loss and sense of injustice suffered by the victims' families were the same as the feeling of loss and sense of injustice suffered by those bereaved by the major incidents.
	Three days after the terrible tragedy at King's Cross, my investigations on behalf of the bereaved and injured led me to inspect what was left of the tube station. Nothing that I had previously experienced could have prepared me for the sights and smells of the fire's devastation that I encountered there. As I took statements from victims, distraught relatives, firefighters and tube staff, and as I sat through the public inquiry day after day, hearing over and again about the failures of the management of London Underground Ltd, it struck me as outrageous that neither the company nor any of its managers would face criminal proceedings over those 31 unnecessary deaths.
	That was because of the inadequacies of the criminal law, and since then I have been campaigning to rectify those inadequacies. The Bill intends to correct them, 20 years after the horrors of Zeebrugge and King's Cross, 10 years after the royal commission's recommendations for change, and six years after my own private Member's Bill. While I naturally prefer the wording of my own Bill, which was simple and effective, I believe that, despite containing shortcomings on which we shall have to focus, this Bill makes some progress towards achieving our aims.
	I have long believed that we need a new law based on three principles. First, when the conduct of a company's management falling far below what can reasonably be expected is the cause—or one of the causes—of a person's death, that company must answer to the criminal courts. Secondly, if the company is convicted, the court should not only be able to punish it severely, but have the power to order it to put right the failings that caused the death. Thirdly, and perhaps most important, there is a need to impose on the senior management of a company an overarching responsibility for the health and safety of its work force and, equally important, of the general public.
	The Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I chair, reported on the Bill today. There is a clear obligation under article 2 of the European convention on human rights to secure the right to life by putting in place effective criminal provisions to deter the commission of offences against the person, backed by appropriate law enforcement. In certain circumstances, this obligation requires the state to ensure that recourse to the criminal law is possible against both private and public bodies in serious cases of unintentional deaths.
	In the Committee's view, there is a clear obligation under article 2 to introduce an offence of corporate manslaughter that would enable recourse to the criminal law against both private and public bodies in circumstances in which that is not possible under the present law, where such recourse would be required under article 2. The Committee therefore welcomes the objective of the Bill as a human rights-enhancing purpose. For me, however, the acid test will be whether it will be easier to prosecute. Thinking back to the disasters of the 1980s and subsequently, would prosecutions that failed at the time—or that were never even brought—have succeeded if these provisions had been available?
	I am worried that the original, broader, definition—used, for example, in the 2000 consultation—that referred to "undertakings" has been removed so as to exclude unincorporated associations. It is suggested that small businesses in this category—against which prosecutions have succeeded under the existing law, which is being abolished by the Bill—would see cases brought against a named trader alone, and that large partnerships such as accountants and lawyers are low risks. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) gave a good example in relation to Lloyd's. But what of architects, for example—who often practise in partnerships—who design a building that collapses, or is gutted by fire, due to grossly negligent design? Schools, clubs and even trade unions are outside the current scope of the Bill.
	The Joint Committee on Human Rights considered whether these various restrictions on the scope of the new offence were incompatible with the right not to be discriminated against in the enjoyment of convention rights under article 14 of the European convention, in conjunction with the right to life in article 2. In my Committee's view, article 14 is engaged because the various restrictions, exclusions and exemptions give rise to differential treatment of individuals in analogous situations in relation to their access to the criminal law in respect of negligently caused death.
	The Committee noted that, in the 2000 consultation paper, the Government accepted that to restrict the scope of the offence by excluding unincorporated bodies
	"could lead to an inconsistency of approach and these distinctions might appear arbitrary."
	To avoid that risk of arbitrariness, the Government at that stage proposed that the new offence should apply to "undertakings", which would include unincorporated as well as incorporated bodies. In the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, the public nature of a body's function has not been regarded as a reason for excluding criminal liability, but on the contrary has been treated as a factor which strengthens the obligation to ensure that recourse to the criminal law is available. The obvious answer is to revert to the original proposal to apply the new offence to "undertakings".
	I very much welcome the extension of the Bill to apply to the Crown, as does the Human Rights Committee. However, my Committee considers that the restrictions, exemptions and exclusions in the Bill will preclude the possibility of prosecution for corporate manslaughter in precisely those contexts in which the positive obligation in article 2 is at its strongest, and in which a criminal prosecution should be brought: the use of lethal force by the police or army; deaths in custody; and deaths of vulnerable children who should be in care—to name just a few examples. This would mean that, in situations in which responsibility for the death lay with a management failure in a public body, rather than with any identifiable individual, recourse to the criminal law would not be possible.
	In a sufficiently serious case, that would be likely to lead to the United Kingdom being found to be in breach of its positive obligation under article 2 to put in place an effective system of judicial remedies, including, in certain circumstances, recourse to the criminal law. In particular, this would apply to deaths in custody. It is not enough to say that there are extensive provisions to investigate these deaths already. So there are, too, for transport accidents, chemical plant explosions or the humble factory death. Individual prosecutions are not the answer either. There is no logical reason to exclude institutional operational failures, which may lead to a death in custody, from the provisions of the Bill.
	In our report, the Committee gives an example to demonstrate this point. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner is currently being prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 in respect of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. If the Bill becomes law unamended, and if, hypothetically, there were clear evidence that a similar shooting was the result of gross negligence on the part of the senior management of the Metropolitan police, but was not attributable to one individual officer who could be described as the controlling mind of the organisation, it would not be possible for the Metropolitan police as a public authority to be prosecuted in respect of the death. It would still only be possible to bring proceedings against the Metropolitan police as a public authority under health and safety legislation, as now, for a much less serious offence. In such circumstances, there would be a strong likelihood that the United Kingdom would be found to be in breach of the positive obligation in article 2, because the criminal offences charged did not reflect the seriousness of the conduct which led to the death, and the judicial system in place was not adequate to secure the full accountability of state authorities for their role in the death.

Joan Humble: Have my hon. Friend and his Committee had an opportunity to consider the Bill's impact on the armed forces, in relation to which there is a series of wide-ranging exclusions? As I am sure he is aware, there have been several deaths in Army barracks in peacetime which have not been properly investigated by the police. Coroners' courts have recorded open verdicts and expressed concern over the operation of the Army in the matter.

Andrew Dismore: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and the report touched on the issue. It is interesting to note that, while training is included, operational activities are not. That applies particularly to the emergency services. When I was in practice, I used to act on behalf of the Fire Brigades Union. A number of deaths were caused by serious management failures on the part of the fire service. As currently configured, the Bill would not include such management failure either.
	I am concerned about the breadth of the general exclusion for public functions in relation to statutory inspections. Such inspections constitute a public safeguard against death and injury. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? That requires clarification in the Bill. As I have said, I am pleased that the Government have provided some clarification in regard to emergency services, but it does not go far enough.
	In relation to management failure, I believe that the Government have created a significant loophole by tying the offence to the actions of senior managers. While the comments of Mr. Justice Sheen in the Zeebrugge ferry disaster inquiry castigated the management throughout—which might just have meant a successful prosecution under the Bill—I am not sure whether the test would have worked at King's Cross, for example, where the failures were further down the food chain, but institutional in the organisation of London Underground.
	I believe that, in having to focus on the behaviour of senior managers, prosecutors will face disadvantages similar to those that they face under existing law, looking for individuals' failures—albeit possibly aggregated—rather than corporate responsibility as a whole. The test would exclude prosecutions in cases in which death occurred in a discrete part of a business, geographically or sectorally. What of a large building site, one of many owned by a large developer, run by a major construction contractor? The person in charge of the site has a large say in how it is run, but may be a very small fish in a large multinational operation's pond which sets the parameters within which he works, especially through finance and the deadlines required by the contract. The Government have indicated that the test will be reconsidered, but I believe that under the Bill as currently drafted, inadequate management practices and systems will escape—especially in large companies—exactly as they do under the existing laws.
	The proposed remedial order power is very welcome, but I believe that it would be better backed up by a contempt of court power, like any other order of the courts. That would overcome the argument over whether the sanction for not complying with a remedial order was correct. But I think that we need to consider more imaginative penalties, too. As has been said, the sanction available is the same as exists under health and safety law. It is difficult to imagine that fines—currently multimillion-pound fines, in some cases—will be much higher, so it must be asked whether the Bill adds value to the existing position. I believe that the Government are right to say that they will consider more innovative sanctions in the light of the wider review of penalties for regulatory offences.
	The Government have suggested that existing legislation allows the disqualification of directors if they have been convicted on indictment, but that response overlooks the fact that they cannot be so convicted, as there is no individual liability under the Bill. The opportunity must be taken to introduce a wider, more innovative range of penalties that are likely to provide a better deterrent to poor health and safety practices, and to deliver justice more effectively to bereaved families.

Dominic Grieve: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that another possible consequence of the Bill is that it will depress fines imposed for deaths that are only prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act? Might that not be an unintended consequence of the new framework?

Andrew Dismore: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. He also made an important point about the possibility that one prosecution would fail where another might succeed. Ultimately, however, the decision must be for the Crown Prosecution Service and the Director of Public Prosecutions, who must authorise prosecutions.
	What is important is for us to look at a wider range of alternatives. A series of suggestions have been made. One is corporate probation, a supervision order imposed by the court on a company that has committed a criminal offence. A court can require a company, its officers or its directors to alter their conduct in a particular way. Those penalties have been used very successfully in, for example, the United States and Canada. Another option is the use of equity fines. They would reduce the value of shares in the company, clearly bringing home to shareholders—the owners of the company—the implications and effect of the criminal offence that their company had committed.
	I think that the Bill's main shortcoming is the lack of individual liability. In my view, that is one of the essential requirements of a successful reform of the law such as I proposed in my Bill. Since 2003, the Government have ruled out individual directors' liability in criminal law, which I consider to be a tragic mistake. The strongest incentive for an individual director would be that he could stand in place of his company in the dock as a result of its failings, leading to the deaths of employees or members of the public. If company directors can face individual liability for offences committed by their companies under the Companies Act 1989, or frauds committed by their companies, it is so much more right that they should face prosecution if those companies kill.
	Without that, the only option is prosecution for regulatory offences. However—this picks up a point raised by the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison)—there is a strong argument that it is an abuse of process to charge a company with two offences, corporate manslaughter and breach of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act, arising from the same circumstances. But without a conviction under the Act, there can be no individual liability of directors or managers under section 37. We could end up with corporate manslaughter charges actually reducing the individual liability of directors in the most serious cases.
	Given that clause 17 also excludes secondary offences, I believe that one of the main requirements of reform has been rejected. After all, the purpose of the Bill must be to act as a deterrent, which, without individual liability, it is far less likely to do.
	Let me end with a short comment on jurisdiction. Much has been written about it, especially when the failures have been in England and Wales but the deaths have occurred in either Scotland or Northern Ireland. However, I am anxious that we should not rule out possible prosecutions when a death could be further afield.
	It is well established that inquests can be held into deaths abroad—indeed, they may be required under human rights obligations. What if an inquest reveals facts that show that serious management failure in England led to a death overseas, but, owing to the Bill's limited jurisdiction, those responsible cannot be prosecuted? Of course, ships and planes may be under our jurisdiction, but what of the package tourist killed on a far eastern holiday as a result of the substandard construction of his hotel, which the British-based tour company knew about and ignored, or killed by bandits or terrorists when the tour company had clear warnings but turned a blind eye in the interests of profit? I believe that we would face immediate calls for further change in the law, as has happened in relation to compensation for victims of crime abroad as a result of recent terrorist attacks.
	Having said all that, I believe that the Government are to be congratulated on the way in which they have engaged with so many organisations in considering suggestions for improvement. However, given the Bill's current drafting, I also believe that the answer to my original proposition "Will it be easier to prosecute companies that kill?" is a resounding "No". While some obstacles have been overcome, other more serious obstacles have been created. I have highlighted just some of the shortcomings which I believe must be addressed in Committee, so that we can all welcome the Bill as a major improvement in health and safety in the workplace, in our transport system and in our public services, ensuring that our manifesto commitment for three elections is met in full.

Edward Davey: Home Office Ministers will be pleased to know that, unlike the hon. Members for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) and for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), I am neither a specialist in health and safety law nor a personal injury lawyer. However, like them, I am prepared to give the Bill a guarded welcome.
	Introducing the legislation, the Home Secretary rightly drew attention to the need for it. Too many families look on the disasters that we have seen in this country over the past 20 years, and are suffering still. They feel that an injustice has occurred, in that the corporations and individuals who were responsible have not faced prosecution or fines as they believe they should have, primarily because of the difficulty of securing convictions under the existing law. What was known as the identification principle—the need to find individual responsibility before one could take the corporation to court—has been the main barrier to successful prosecutions and the Bill is supposed to put that right. To the extent that it goes some way to doing that, despite the criticisms that we have heard today, it is to be welcomed.
	We need legislation that can give the justice that the families and wider society require and that ensures that there is a deterrent for the managers of corporations to make sure that they treat health and safety with the seriousness that it needs. There should be no leniency for those responsible for deaths in the work place or as a result of organisational activity.
	One is left rather surprised that the Home Secretary did not give more of an apology in his opening remarks. The Bill has been long promised and long delayed. I have counted the number of promises that Ministers have made on the record since Labour came to power in 1997. There have been 12 over those years, beginning at the 1997 Labour party conference, when the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) promised to introduce an offence of corporate killing. Nothing happened.
	We had to wait until 2000, when a Home Office consultation paper promised action. Nothing happened. In the Queen's Speech at the end of 2000, we were promised a Bill. Nothing happened. We were told in Labour's 2001 manifesto that there would be action. Nothing happened. We were told that a draft Bill would be published in May 2003. Nothing happened.
	I could go on with the list of promises. We were promised a Bill in the 2004 Session. A Bill was published, but did not go through in that Session. We are now the other side of the last election and we have had to wait a year between the publication of the Bill and the debate on the Floor of the House.
	There have been a lot of delays, during which there has been a lot of watering-down of some of the promises made to the electorate in three manifestos. It is the duty of this House to ask serious questions about why the Government have U-turned on a number of issues and why the legislation, while welcome, still does not have the teeth it needs. There seems to have been an awful lot of lobbying from Whitehall and corporate interests to water down some of the proposals. I hope that, as the Bill goes through the House, we can put some teeth back into it.
	It is right that we pay tribute to the Law Commission, to some of the officials, particularly those who worked on the earlier consultations, and to the Select Committees on Home Affairs and on Work and Pensions, which made real criticisms in their pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill. My concern is that the Government responded to some harsh criticisms of the Bill by almost ignoring them.
	The Home Secretary said that the Government had taken on board some of the criticisms. I see almost no sign of that and would be interested if the Minister could point to any areas of real significance where the Government have shifted from the draft Bill. Like the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), I am concerned that public expectations that action is being taken are being raised but may well not be met in practice. We have a number of concerns and I want to focus on five.

Gerry Sutcliffe: I may not have time to answer the hon. Gentleman at the end of the debate, but the report made 57 recommendations. We rejected nine and accepted, or partially accepted, the remainder.

Edward Davey: I may have been corrected immediately, but I guess that the Government have rejected the most serious and significant recommendations, while accepting a few drafting amendments.
	Our first concern is with senior management failure. We heard from the Home Secretary that he may move on that issue but I wish to press that point, which is very significant. It is the issue that is supposed to move the legislation on. If we fail to deal with it, we are wasting our time tonight.
	The issue of individual liability, referred to by the hon. Member for Hendon, is significant, not least because the Government have U-turned on the issue compared with the previous consultation. There is also the issue of Crown immunity. The Government are right to be proud that they are getting rid of Crown immunity in a number of areas, but many outside this place believe that the number of exemptions in the Bill is large and that they go extremely wide; they are not narrow, as Home Office Ministers sometimes would have us believe.
	There is a real danger that a death caused by a public organisation will be put on a different level from a death caused by a private organisation. That seems to be completely wrong in principle and the Home Secretary used some weasel words to justify that discrimination. We should not accept them. If the Government are so keen on victims' rights, those who are victims of gross negligence by a public organisation, and their families, should be able to seek justice against that organisation.
	The fourth issue is the duty of care test, which is part of the core edifice on which the Bill is built. I am told that a number of examples showed corporate negligence at an appalling level where there was no duty of care. The duty of care test is relatively limited in the Bill and we are concerned that the test from civil law is somehow being planted into criminal law.
	The fifth area on which I want to focus is sanctions. Others have mentioned the inadequacy of, and lack of imagination in, sanctions on corporate bodies, but what about public bodies? There is a real danger that fines imposed on a public body will simply result in extra allocations of resources to that public body to ensure that the public service that it provides is not hindered. We must think more imaginatively if we are to make sure that public organisations feel the heat of the guilty verdict.
	My first set of remarks is on management failure. If the Government stick by their proposal or even change the wording of the Bill in a minor way, they will be storing up problems. The real problem is that the Government are giving an incentive to delegate health and safety issues outside the immediate realm of senior managers. According to surveys of businesses, that is already happening in anticipation of the Bill. Directors are passing down responsibility for health and safety matters to junior managers. They justify that by saying that every factory in the organisation is different, that a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate and that the local manager should decide the best way to deal with health and safety matters. It would be perverse if the measure were to reduce the importance of health and safety to corporations. That needs careful examination in Committee because we could end up with a far worse situation.
	The hon. Member for Beaconsfield, in some detail, touched on the fact that the test for senior management failure could lead to extra complexity and add longevity to trials as one tries to decide whether there was a senior management failure or a failure of the wider organisation. I hope that, when we get the letter from the Home Secretary, we can have more detail and he will have moved significantly. If not, that will fatally undermine the Bill. We look forward to receiving the letter.
	On individual liability, the Government could have approached the issue in a number of ways. The Home Secretary is right to say that it will still be possible to take an individual director to court on a charge of gross negligence. However, he started his remarks by saying how difficult that was, particularly in large organisations, so he was arguing against himself. Clause 17 deals with the idea of secondary liability, whereby if the corporation is found guilty of corporate manslaughter, the individual director
	"cannot be guilty of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the commission of an offence".
	Striking that provision out of the Bill seems to us quite wrong. It could mean that while the corporate body is penalised, the court cannot deal with the senior level individual who was responsible. We hope that the Government will reflect on that point again in Committee. Justice must be seen to be done and there is a real danger that clause 17 will reduce the courts' ability to find individuals guilty.
	On Crown immunity, the Government's movement is incredibly welcome. Although I would not use the Home Secretary's term "historic", the provisions represent an important move forward. We have seen too many examples in the past of Government Departments and agencies committing serious offences without being held to account for them. I worry that there are too many loopholes. The hon. Member for Hendon referred to loopholes in respect of offences under health and safety legislation. The Government said in their response to the Select Committee report that they would look at the issue again. They need to do so, because allowing such an exemption seems bizarre.
	I am particularly worried by clause 4(4), which deals with the exclusion from Crown immunity of services that are "exclusively public function". Some people believe, perhaps incorrectly, that the provision is so broad that it amounts to a catch-all phrase that would retain Crown immunity for a large number of organisations. We also want to test that argument out in Committee. Many believe that the provision will affect the custody of prisoners, either by the Prison Service or the police or in immigration detention centres. There is a danger of Crown immunity preventing prosecutions where deaths in custody have taken place. The Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights—the hon. Member for Hendon—would probably confirm that his Committee was indeed worried about that point. Under the European convention on human rights, the authorities have a duty to protect prisoners and there is a danger of this exemption preventing the Government from meeting their obligations.

Edward Garnier: Do not those remarks underline the need for a robust and independent prisons inspector? The Government want to do away with that, but if we are going to retain the gobbledegook of clause 4(4), it strikes me that it is all the more necessary to resist the Government's intentions on the abolition of the independent inspector of prisons.

Edward Davey: The hon. and learned Gentleman is right, but what he said should not lead us to allow the provision to go through unamended. The Home Secretary tried to argue that public bodies were accountable in many other different ways. They might be accountable to the prisons inspectorate and, ultimately, to the electorate. However, there have been too many examples of public inquiries into deaths—as with the Victoria Climbié tragedy, for example—failing to result in anyone taking the wrap. We have also seen calls for public inquiries denied because of the extra costs involved. We therefore believe that the exemption really goes too far. There are also complications with respect to private prisons. As we understand it, such prisons are less accountable than was suggested by the mechanisms that the Home Secretary attempted to pray in aid for the exemption. That makes for an even stronger case for ensuring that Crown immunity does not apply in such cases.
	I hope that the provisions on those exemptions can be amended. There is an important link with other points about the exemptions of different organisations being drawn too widely in the Bill. Some hon. Members have mentioned unincorporated organisations and partnerships, and I completely agree with what they said. It was mentioned earlier that the Government had argued that it was far too difficult to include unincorporated businesses into the legislation because they had no legal identity. Yet all those familiar with corporate law and the Companies Act 1985—my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), for example—know that such organisations can be taken to court and prosecuted.

Mark Tami: I remain unsure, on the basis of what the hon. Gentleman says, whether the Liberal Democrats are supporting the Bill.

Edward Davey: I made it clear in my opening remarks that we will support the Bill, for which we have waited many years. There is a real need to tighten the legislation in this sphere. We have already heard tonight that, as a result of parliamentary pressure, the Home Secretary is going to shift on one of the matters that I am most concerned about, so I hope that further parliamentary pressure—in tonight's debate and in Committee—can get the Government to make further shifts. The hon. Gentleman should talk to his hon. Friends, many of whom share our concerns while wishing to support the Government in the Lobbies if there is a Division.

Robert Smith: Surely all the criticisms are directed to further improving the Bill, so supporting Second Reading tonight will allow the House to make the improvements that have been outlined in the debate.

Edward Davey: My hon. Friend is right.
	Our fourth concern is with how the Bill is constructed, particularly with respect to the duty of care that corporations and organisations have to bestow on the victim before they can be accused of an offence. We believe that that unduly limits the new offence and that focusing on the civil law definition of duty of care rather than the law of negligence and criminal law amounts to a restriction. For example, one could imagine an organisation, especially if it is a public body, having a statutory duty under health and safety legislation, but no duty of care. Once again, that illustrates a problem with the approach. Surely every organisation owes a public duty not to kill a person by its gross negligence. It is a simple as that. Linking the issue only to duty of care tests under civil law does not go far enough.

David Howarth: Before my hon. Friend leaves this subject, I hope that he will return to the case of Regina  v. Wacker, which he mentioned in an earlier intervention. It was a Court of Appeal case about the 58 deaths of illegal immigrants in the back of a lorry. In that case, the defendant said that there should be no liability in criminal law because there was no duty of care in civil law on the ground that all the parties were engaged in a common criminal enterprise. The Bill brings that defence back for corporations.

Edward Davey: My hon. Friend is right and I was about to touch on that point. Because he has made it so well, there is no need for me to repeat it.
	The final issue that I want to bring to the Minister's attention is sanctions. The Home Secretary said, though he was not speaking very clearly, that the Government were reflecting on new sanctions for corporates and he mentioned a few of them. We know that there is a Home Office review, but I do not believe that it has yet been published. Perhaps the Minister will clarify the date of publication. A Whitehall review is taking place and it could be linked to the Bill to produce new types of sanctions on corporates, so it will be a real shame if it is not produced in time for the Bill's passage. I am keen to hear the Minister's guidance on that.

Gerry Sutcliffe: The hon. Gentleman mentions Professor Macrory and his review of the duties of directors, which is linked to several items of legislation, including the Companies Bill. We are not in control of when Professor Macrory delivers his recommendations but, when he does, we will be able to consider what he says about penalties and sanctions.

Edward Davey: I hope that if Professor Macrory produces some proposals with which the Government agree, we will see a separate Bill to amend this Bill and other pieces of legislation to ensure that any new sanctions can be applied. Indeed, the Government may wish to leave it to Parliament to decide, as the Bill makes progress. Several proposals have been made. For example, the hon. Member for Hendon mentioned equity fines and the suggestion of corporate community service is also sensible. Disqualification has also been suggested, although for some reason the Government appear to want to rule that out in this Bill.
	As I said earlier, it is a concern that, while the Government are getting rid of Crown immunity in several areas, they have not made any imaginative proposals for sanctions on public bodies, which do not feel any serious pain as a result of fines. The careers of individuals running those organisations might have a black mark set against them, but the organisation involved would doubtless simply put in an extra bid to the Treasury. I do not think that the victims and their families would be very impressed by that. The Government have not done any extra constructive thinking on that point.
	I shall end with two minor points. The first concerns the Scottish question.

Stewart Hosie: The Scottish question?

Edward Davey: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware of this point. Most people interested in the issue were of the view that the Scottish Executive would make its own proposals. That was the accepted view until relatively recently. An expert group was set up to consider the issue and make some proposals, which were, on the face of it, more radical and stronger than those in the Bill. Then the lawyers in Whitehall and Edinburgh got together and decided that it was a reserved matter. That was a late decision, given that it has taken nine years to get to this point.

Stewart Hosie: The hon. Gentleman says that this issue was deemed a reserved matter. Did not the Liberal Democrats and others in the Scottish Parliament vote to Sewel this issue and make it a Westminster responsibility again, after it had been fully devolved all along?

Edward Davey: It was the recommendation of the lawyers on both sides, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that they would do something that was illegal. I hope that the Government will say why that decision was taken so late.

Gerry Sutcliffe: Scottish law has different penalties for such matters. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary clearly said—he spent some time on the issue—the expert group met and came to conclusions in its report in November. However, it wanted to move into the area of health and safety, which is clearly a reserved matter, not a devolved one. There is no confusion on the point.

Edward Davey: As I understood it, the Minister's point relates to criminal law, so I hope that he will be able to be clearer on the issue in Committee. Perhaps he could publish the legal advice.
	The second concern is the limitation on private prosecutions. Under the Bill, one would have to obtain the permission of the Director of Public Prosecutions before one could take a private prosecution. I know that several business organisations prefer that, but it does require some explanation by the Government as it could limit access to justice in some of the serious offences.
	I have been critical of elements of the Bill and rightly so, because many experts in the area share my concerns. However, we are at least making progress. It has taken a long time, but we want to ensure that the Bill receives a Second Reading tonight and that our proposals receive a fair hearing in Committee. I hope that the House will work at its best to strengthen the legislation.

Jimmy Hood: Like the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), I am not a lawyer, but I have to say that if he had not told me that he was not, I would not have known. He made a few valid points, some of which I agree with and some that I do not.
	All my adult life, I have championed the cause of safety and health in the workplace. I was 23 years a miner, 14 of them as a union official and a workman's inspector. Safety and health is an inspirational issue that has guided working class people in their trade unions and in their representation in Parliament for the best part of a century. I recognise the need for the Bill to be improved, but I welcome the fact that it will receive its Second Reading tonight.
	The Government are fulfilling the promise that they made a few years ago. We would have preferred to have it sooner, but we should not forget the good work of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister in 2000, after disasters on the railways such as Hatfield. He introduced culpable homicide legislation, and this is a further step on the way that we should welcome.
	For a lad brought up in a mining community, the trauma of miners killed in pit disasters and gas explosions, and dying from mining diseases, was commonplace. As a young boy, I saw my father come home too many times from the pit to tell us that a workman had been killed. Sadly, mining communities knew how to respond in solidarity to the loss of one of their own, because it was all too common. Miners' lives were a price that the coal owners thought was worth paying for the pittance in wages that miners got at the time.
	On too many occasions as a mining union official, I had to go and tell a wife that her husband and father of her children would not be coming home. That personal experience influences everything that I have said and done in this place for 20 years. I know, in my heart of hearts, that had there been a law that told the director of the colliery where I worked that he could be held personally responsible for the loss of life, many of those mining disasters would have been averted and a lot of lives saved. So I do not make anything small of this important step. We will want to tweak and improve parts of the Bill, but it is an important step.
	For those in other parties who are less enthusiastic in their support for the Bill, I shall end with a few words about the 1999 Larkhall gas explosion. On the evening of 22 December 1999, a mother and father and their two children went to bed, looking forward to Christmas. At 5.30 in the morning, their house was blown up in a gas explosion and their lives were extinguished. That family—Drew and Janette Findlay with their two children, Stacey, 13 years old and Daryl, 11 years old—was lost. The Home Secretary mentioned Transco, the corporation that was held responsible for the explosion.
	Nothing that I had experienced prepared me for the trauma of that perplexing tragedy. It was not a workplace accident; it happened in the sanctuary of a young couple's home. A family with everything to live for was taken from us by what we now know was a disaster that should not have happened and would not have happened were it not for Transco's corporate negligence.
	Transco was fined a record £15 million under health and safety legislation. It was not convicted under Scots law of culpable homicide—it got off on that. Fifteen million pounds is double the highest fine in England, which was £7.5 million, as was mentioned earlier. Although £15 million may sound a lot of money, Transco was found guilty and culpable of the deaths of the family in Larkhall because of its corporate negligence in not spending £350 million in renewing the pipelines that would have prevented the deaths of the Findlays. It is claimed that a fine of £15 million could be viewed as a deterrent, but it does not appear so when compared with the £350 million that the corporation did not spend. The only deterrent would be a law that holds someone responsible and influences such people's decision making so that they know that, when they give an executive order, if lives are lost, the price is their freedom. They have to be accountable.
	It is no comfort to families who have lost their loved ones to hear of fines to corporations. That would not give the Findlay family in Larkhall comfort. We need legislation that protects our families. That is just. I welcome Second Reading but my test in Committee and on Third Reading will be, "Are families safer because of the Bill?" Will families, such as the Findlays, who went to their beds looking forward to Christmas, be safer because of the legislation that we pass? I hope that the answer is yes.

James Duddridge: It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton, East (Mr. Hood), who made a moving speech.
	Clearly, there is a case for action, but what sort of action? My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) made a good case for amending the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974. However, I understand that there may be good reason not to do that. If a member of my family had been killed in a tragedy such as those that we are considering, I would find it insulting that the matter was covered by health and safety legislation. Equally, having met families affected by other tragedies, who are getting over a period of grief, I know that getting justice quickly is important. It worries me that introducing a new Bill rather than amending the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 could increase the time for bringing about justice. If a prosecution under corporate manslaughter fails, there may be another two-year wait for a health and safety prosecution.
	I am not a lawyer, but in reading around the Bill I kept reverting to a basic question. Why are we pushing the Bill forward? Is it to punish corporates or for the purpose of prevention? Although there is clearly a link between the two, the question is important because of the criteria for success when we look back in future. If we are trying to punish—there is good reason to punish some of those evil corporates—why do we predict only 10 or 13 prosecutions a year? Those are simply prosecutions, not necessarily successful ones.
	Perhaps a punishment argument makes sense if it pump-primes change and makes more corporates think carefully about what they do. However, if that is the point of the Bill, the regulatory impact assessment would involve significant change and extra cost. I do not mean negative cost but cost such as the £350 million that could have saved lives, which was described earlier. If prevention is the key, perhaps that bolsters the case for amending the 1974 Act and examining corporate manslaughter through that prism rather than a new measure.
	I was worried about the identification principle and trying to find a directing mind in an organisation. Clause 2, which defines "senior managers", would effectively create the same problems that exist in current legislation. The Home Secretary started to reassure me and I believed that he had taken on board all the Select Committee's comments. However, in Committee we must examine the wording in detail because, at the end of his contribution, the Home Secretary referred to some form of judgment about the majority of senior managers. He used the words that he had appeared to try to avoid. Like the Centre for Corporate Accountability, I am worried that health and safety will be relegated in an organisation to below the level of senior managers, to avoid overall prosecution. None of us supports that.
	I congratulate the Government on the welcome removal of Crown indemnity. However, they can go several steps further. Perhaps they should not include all public bodies—there is a compelling case about emergency services and the armed forces—but several hon. Members mentioned the Prison Service. Pauline Day, a constituent of mine, had a son, Paul Day, who died in a segregation unit. That led to one of the longest death-in-custody inquests in the United Kingdom. It is difficult to explain why, in such cases, the Government are effectively looking at themselves. If something is right for the private sector, why is not it right for the public sector? That applies even more to privatised prisons. A benefit of providing a public service at a distance from Government should be that the Government have greater control and can exercise greater accountability over that prison. It is ludicrous that we can put services out to private prisons, but not gain the full benefits of doing that.
	The Joint Committee, chaired ably, I am sure, by the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), said that exempting public bodies may even contravene article 14 of the European convention on human rights. We have looked at this matter for some 12 years and I am amazed that something so fundamental should have emerged only so recently. Clearly, there remains an awful lot of work to be done.
	I turn now to the Bill's impact on company structures. Does the Minister anticipate that they will change? Will companies contract out risk? For instance, will service industries that get involved in dirtier, more risky pursuits contract out the work to avoid the risk of prosecution? That might happen even with good companies, and even when the risk is quite small. Does the Minister agree that large corporates could set up shell companies to isolate the risk? Even good companies might do that to mitigate the health and safety risk.
	What is the statute of limitations in these cases? What types of case could be prosecuted under the corporate manslaughter provisions? In the past, we have had cases involving asbestos, but what will be their equivalent in the future? Will corporates that promote smoking in new markets be prosecuted?
	Will customers or employees waive their rights under this Bill? If I go bungee jumping, most people would accept that it is right for me to be able to waive some of my health and safety rights, but wrong to waive them all.

Edward Garnier: I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend, but the Bill extends the criminal law. By and large, companies and individuals cannot contract out of the criminal law.

James Duddridge: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that.
	I turn now to the fines. The Select Committee suggested that they should be based on turnover, but that would be wholly inappropriate, as some companies produce high-margin goods, and others low-margin goods. It would be much better to hit shareholders and investors where it hurts, and change the dynamic by moving to prevention.
	I am concerned about setting up victim funds. They are laudable, but they mix up the questions of reparation and punishment, which I believe should remain separate.
	The impact assessment makes little mention of the cost of prosecution, but there is a significant gap in the expertise available to the Crown Prosecution Service and the police. The HSE says that it does not particularly want to be involved in prosecution, but it is the Minister's responsibility to say that it is the Government body with the relevant expertise in these matters. He should therefore compel the HSE to be much more involved.
	I could raise many more questions, but I am conscious that other hon. Members want to contribute to the debate so I shall draw to a close. It is clear that a number of issues remain unresolved, and that we should not push forward with the Bill as long as they remain unanswered.

Tony Lloyd: I begin by saying that I disagree fundamentally with the final comments of the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge), as I very much hope that we will push forward with the Bill. Of course, we must try to improve it, and I shall make some observations later about how I think that can be done. Indeed, I suspect that at some time in the future we will have to go beyond the current proposals, but first I want to return to what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said at the beginning of the debate when he paid tribute to a man called Maurice de Rohan, who died a few days ago.
	I first met Maurice de Rohan in the context of the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster. He lost his daughter and son-in-law in the accident, but the marvellous thing about him as a human being was that he channelled his very real grief at the totally avoidable outrage committed against his family into a search for creative answers to the problems posed by the breaching of people's rights under the existing health and safety framework. I continue to be inspired by the humanity that he displayed in that search.
	There have been many incidents over the years, such as the Piper Alpha tragedy, the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, various rail crashes and so on. We call them accidents, but really they happened as a result of gross and culpable negligence. Unfortunately, in many cases it was never possible to prove that culpability.
	Lord Justice Sheen conducted the official inquiry into the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster. In his decision, he said that the capsizing of the vessel was partly caused or contributed to by serious negligence in the discharge of their duties by the captain, the chief officer and the assistant bosun, and partly caused or contributed to by the fault of Townsend Car Ferries Ltd., the owners. The court went on to suspend the certificates of the captain and the chief officer for varying periods, but no other penalties were imposed, even though 180 people died in a disaster that should never have happened.
	My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has already referred to Lord Justice Sheen's description of P&O, but it is worth quoting again. Lord Justice Sheen said that from
	"top to bottom the body corporate was infected with the disease of sloppiness".
	He added that management's failure to give clear and proper directions was a contributory cause of the disaster.
	That is a very serious charge. The House must consider what a difference this Bill would have made had its provisions been applicable to the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, or to the various other disasters that have taken place. The prosecution of P&O was contemplated in the Herald of Free Enterprise case, but could not be pursued under the existing legislation. However, it would be possible under the terms of this Bill. I believe that it would be right and proper for a large company responsible for a disaster to be subject to salutary action and fines, as that would give expression to the genuine public outrage at the fact that any company could behave in that way.
	However, this Bill is not likely to have the same impact in cases such as the King's Cross disaster, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) referred. It is worth asking whether the Bill goes far enough in terms of covering everything that Parliament should do on behalf of the people who lose family members in the many different types of disaster that occur.
	I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will look at some of the technical issues that arise from the Bill. It is certainly true that we need to look into the question of incorporated as opposed to non-incorporated bodies. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) made a good case when he explained why he thought it inappropriate to make that the operable distinction in these matters. In addition, the Committee must look in detail at the narrow definition of management. I hope that the Minister will consider extending that definition, and I know that he has already indicated that he is prepared to do so.
	When the Minister winds up the debate, will he give specific guidance why clause 18 is needed? It abolishes the application of the common-law offence of manslaughter to corporations. I understand that lawyers are reluctant to have more than one offence covering any particular incident, but my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary earlier argued that the Bill would allow the prosecution, in the most serious cases, both of a corporation and of individuals. Clause 18 appears to weaken that power, and we need to consider whether it is wise to retain it.

Edward Garnier: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for letting me intervene, because although it is not for me to respond for the Government, it seems to me that if the Bill has any merit at all it is that it gets rid of the confusion and difficulties caused by the need to find in a corporate manslaughter prosecution an individual or group of individuals who can be identified as the directing mind. Removing that confusion and replacing it with the measures in the Bill is sensible, because it relieves the court and the prosecution of that hurdle. I agree that the Home Secretary did not have full mastery of his Bill, but he was clear about this point, which he made a couple of times: the individual personal liability for manslaughter by gross negligence remains. If the Bill has merit, it is that of getting rid of the confusion that has led to many wasted prosecutions—wasted time, emotion and cost—chasing corporate defendants through the principle of identification, so I urge the hon. Gentleman to reconsider his criticism of clause 18.

Tony Lloyd: I listened with care to the hon. Gentleman, but I ask him, too, to reflect. Although I understand the concept of getting rid of a test that has proved burdensome and has therefore prevented prosecutions, when it is clear that there actually is a controlling mind, which behaved inappropriately or, in some cases, outrageously, it does not seem inappropriate to maintain on the statute book the present manslaughter test that would allow prosecution of an individual as well as a corporation.
	People will have to come to their own subjective view on the big questions about the point of the legislation. In the end, if the question is not really whether lawyers can define in court the right and proper way to judge a case before the judicial process, but something rather different—whether the legislation can help us to change the health and safety culture—we have to examine how the law can best help us to change the minds of employers or managers who are sometimes reckless, but sometimes simply indifferent.
	To go back to the Herald of Free Enterprise case, it is almost inconceivable that we could go as far as saying that any of the senior people in P&O deliberately set out to kill passengers on the ferry. That would be a charge too much, even for me, as someone who has the lowest possible view of P&O management at the time—those sloppy managers who were unfit to manage a large company. However, in that context, was the law that applied to P&O at the time, which included the concept of potential corporate manslaughter—even though it was not possible to prosecute in that case—so clearly defined in the minds of management that they could take risks under that law that they would not take under the law that we propose to introduce? It would be incredible if there was such a fine degree of decision making among managers about the level of risk they were prepared to take in a given situation.
	The problem with P&O was that the company was reckless not by deliberate action, but because health and safety did not figure strongly enough in its culture at the time. The company took no real action to drive through a health and safety regime.
	I hope that the Government will continue to consider the need to make sure that those who should drive the health and safety case through companies have a specific responsibility. In the case of the Herald of Free Enterprise, that was not the captain, the chief officer or the bosun, but the most senior P&O managers who failed to make the safety case throughout their whole corporate structure and thus allowed such lax standards that 187 people died.
	If we are to change that culture and to stop not only those who are deliberately indifferent, but—much more commonly—those who are simply casual in their view of their employees and the general public, there must be direct responsibility for health and safety. There must be named directors for health and safety—as there are for financial duties—whose role and responsibility is to drive through regulations about acceptable standards throughout the organisation. The health and safety directors would thus have an adequate defence if things went wrong, because they could show that there was due diligence in the company and a proper attempt to provide a healthy and safe working environment. If that was not so, the health and safety directors should end up in prison—as they should have done in the case of the Herald of Free Enterprise.
	I strongly support the Bill, although I hope that we can improve it. I hope that we can go beyond its provisions and make the safety case that will drive through proper, safe working environments, not simply for those in the workplace but for those who use our places of work—ferries, trains and so on. We must make sure that in the future there will not be another Herald of Free Enterprise, and I shall not have to pay tribute to people whose humanity transcends personal tragedy because we shall have stopped the personal tragedies.

Jeremy Wright: I start by agreeing with a sentiment that has been expressed by Members on both sides of the House during the debate: a great many bereaved families across the country have waited a long time for this gap in the law to be plugged. To that degree, I congratulate the Government on making an effort to do just that. I fear, however, that this Bill is not the legislation for which all those families have been waiting.
	I want to deal with two problems, both of which other Members have touched on already. The first problem, which the Government have correctly identified, is with the original common-law offence of gross negligence manslaughter—the difficulty of identifying the directing mind. That is the right problem to focus on, but I fear that we have only a partial solution, because the Government have introduced a piece of legislation that deals with it only inasmuch as it narrows down the offence.
	The Bill refers to senior managers and the need to identify negligence as being perpetrated by them as a group. I accept that that is better than trying to find an individual manager, but it is still not quite good enough. It will not avoid entirely the difficulty posed to the Crown Prosecution Service and juries by the original common-law offence—trying to find out who in particular was responsible. An element of that concept must be retained, because to determine that the people responsible were senior rather than junior managers, a degree of detective work is required by the CPS and a degree of judgment by the jury. That problem has not yet been resolved.
	The more substantive problem, on which I want to focus specifically, is Crown immunity. Like other Members, I applaud the removal of Crown immunity in principle, but I suspect that through the lengthy, detailed and wide-ranging exemptions under clauses 4 to 8, that good move has been substantially undermined. The exemptions are far too wide.
	The Government have set out to do something worth while and noble—to deliver a level playing field between public and private enterprises. Unfortunately, that is not what the Bill delivers. The excessive width of the exemptions is wrong for two reasons. They are needlessly and damagingly wide. I say damagingly, because the impression may be left in the mind of the public that the Government are trying to protect themselves from the things on which they are most vulnerable—the cases that are most likely to come to court under the Bill. It would be most unfortunate if that were the perception given by the Government, although I do not think for a moment that is their intention. However, unless that part of the Bill is amended, there is a distinct danger that that impression will be given.
	We do not want it to appear that the Government are including in the exemptions all the cases that have appeared in the headlines in recent months and years and all the cases in which the public might think that the Government were most vulnerable to a prosecution in the public sector for corporate manslaughter. In respect of this Bill, the maxim remains true that hard cases make bad law—and that includes cases that are hard for the Government, just as it includes cases that are hard for everyone else.
	I shall explain why such exemptions are needless. There seems to be insufficient trust in two important bodies in the criminal justice system. One is the CPS, on which we rely to choose which cases should be prosecuted and which should not, and the second, which is more important in many ways, consists of juries. We can rely, and we have relied, on juries to make a distinction between cases that genuinely involve corporate manslaughter on the basis of gross negligence and those that do not.
	At this point I, too, should declare an interest: as a barrister, I have had quite a bit to do with juries in my time, and my judgment is that, generally speaking, juries exercise common sense and good judgment, and can tell the difference between what is gross negligence manslaughter and what is not. However, the Government have not given juries the opportunity to do so in relation to a vast swathe of public sector activity, and we should give them that opportunity.
	The Government fear that the result will be convictions for gross negligence manslaughter in cases where, for example, the police are involved in a counter-terrorist activity, the emergency services are involved in a rescue or the armed forces are operating in a military situation. I do not believe that juries, properly directed by the judge, will reach those conclusions. So I think that we ought to trust juries, because that will enable us, as a legislature, to present the public at large, who, as other hon. Members have observed, have waited a very long time, with legislation that is fair and equitable across the board, and does not make exceptions where they should not be made.
	Of course I accept that exceptions should be made in some cases—military operations in the theatre of conflict are a perfectly good example—but the exemptions in the Bill are too wide. The military exemptions do not just cover operations in the theatre of conflict. They could be interpreted to cover even basic training. That is too wide, and there is no reason why the Government should be concerned about narrowing those exemptions. I firmly believe, based on my experience, that juries are unlikely to reach the wrong conclusions in such cases.
	I should like the Bill to be improved. I believe that its principles, aims and objectives are worth while, but it is not the Bill that it should be. It is not the Bill for which thousands of families across the country have waited so long, and it is not the Bill that they deserve, because it appears not to level the playing field between the public and private sectors, although it could do so far more effectively. It is crucial to ensure that the Government—the state—legislates for everyone, not just for everyone else. That is why the Bill needs to be improved. I hope that during its passage through the House it will be improved, and that we will produce the legislation for which we have all been waiting for a very long time.

Ian Stewart: I am very pleased to speak in this debate because health and safety at work is a matter in which I have a personal interest and a union concern, as a lifelong member of the Transport and General Workers Union. I believe the proposals before us represent a significant step forward. The Government propose to prosecute companies whose gross negligence leads to the death of employees or members of the public. If a company is found guilty of corporate manslaughter, the penalty will be an unlimited fine and a possible remedial order to address the cause of the fatality. Those provisions will cover most public sector and voluntary organisations. That is an extremely important change, but I hope that the Government will be persuaded to be bolder still and incorporate in the Bill measures regarding directors' duties and custodial sentences for those found guilty of corporate manslaughter.
	I will admit that, as a newly elected MP, when the then Home Secretary—my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw)—announced at a Labour party conference that in October 1997 Labour would introduce corporate manslaughter legislation, I was expecting the conventional nine-month gestation period before the delivery of the commitment, not the nine years that have come to pass.
	Like many colleagues here, over the past nine years, I have regularly raised the matter in the House and written to Ministers, calling for the inclusion of corporate manslaughter in the next Queen's Speech, and the next Queen's Speech, and so on. So, today, I should like to place on record my appreciation for the work done by two ex-Members who are no longer full-time politicians, the first of whom is Ross Cranston, who introduced the Company Directors (Health and Safety) Bill in 2003, and the second is Lawrie Quinn, who introduced the Health and Safety at Work (Offences) Bill. Both men championed this cause with passion, skill and persistence.
	We all accept that the key focus of policy regarding health and safety at work must be on the prevention of accidents and fatalities at work. The development of trade union health and safety representatives, working co-operatively and constructively with management, has a significant role to play in the workplace. Labour has long argued that being green is good for business—I note that the Conservatives have now joined us on that. We also say that good safety is good for business because it is an investment in a company's most important resource—its work force. I look forward to support for that from Conservative Members today.
	Some of the key figures show the extent of the problem that we face. In 2005, 212 workers were killed in work-related accidents. As data from the Health and Safety Executive reveal, the deterrents in place under existing health and safety legislation are, in my view, woefully inadequate. For example, in 2003-04, the average fine for a company where health and safety offences resulted in a death was just over £43,000. The average fine for health and safety breaches by individual managers and directors was just about £3,300 for each offence. It cannot be argued with any credibility that the current rules act as a deterrent.
	I am sure that many Members have been supplied with tragic examples of death at work. One such example brought to my attention was that of a 15-year-old boy who died after being caught in a crushing machine, while working at a waste-recycling site in 2001. In the court case that followed, it was revealed that the crushing machine had been left ticking over while a blockage was removed, when it should have been switched off. Furthermore, the protective guards that should have prevented workers from climbing on to the machinery had been removed. The company was fined £32,000 for breaching health and safety law. The boy lost his life. No directing mind and no company director was convicted of manslaughter.
	I understand that, according to the HSE, 70 per cent. of workplace fatalities are the result of management failures. It should be noted that only seven small companies have been prosecuted under the current legislation. It is unacceptable that we have seen 11 major national disasters from the King's Cross fire to the Potters Bar rail crash, resulting in about 671 deaths, and not one prosecution with a custodial sentence for corporate manslaughter under the current legislation. That is why we need effective corporate manslaughter legislation and why we welcome and must improve the Bill. I believe therefore that, when accidents happen, workers and indeed the public at large have a legitimate expectation that the company, in corporate terms, will be brought to account and that the consequences will be serious, not minor or trivial.
	In 2001, the former head of the CBI, Sir Digby Jones, said, when commenting on proposals put forward by the Health and Safety Commission as a draft code of practice, that he welcomed the elevation of this subject to the same level of consciousness in the boardroom as sales and finance. I hope that the Minister hears my point that Labour's legislation must ensure the same level of consciousness and, most important, the same level of responsibility.
	No individuals in a company are more important to ensuring safety in the workplace than directors. They decide the level of investment and priority given to health and safety. They decide whether their company is subject to proper health and safety audits and they encourage recognition of unsafe practices and their remedies. Other areas of legislation recognise the need to impose a custodial sentence, so this Bill must be seen to be closing an anomalous loophole or, more appropriately, putting a wrong right. I will return to that point later.
	I and my union, the TGWU, supported the Health and Safety (Directors' Duties) Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn) that sadly fell foul of the parliamentary timetable in 2005. The Bill sought to introduce positive health and safety obligations on directors. I believe a corporate manslaughter Bill will be fully effective only if there is also a specific duty on directors.
	I know that there are concerns about the definition of senior management in the Bill, a point that some of my colleagues have raised today. The definition raises some important questions. Will it include regional or sectoral managers if they do not play a significant role in the company? In large companies, will it be less likely that an individual manager will be deemed to play a significant role? Who is responsible when a large company subcontracts its work? All these matters need to be satisfactorily resolved.
	The other issue that I would like to address is that of penalties for flouting the proposed new law. I have considerable sympathy for those who argue that if directors can be given a custodial sentence for fraud or for breaking environmental or food safety laws, that should be an option for the punishment of corporate manslaughter. How can it be right that an identified director can receive a custodial sentence for fraud or the breach of environmental or food laws but, should the Bill become an Act of Parliament, no one is to be punished by custodial sentence when corporate manslaughter is proven and a human being has lost their life?
	I ask the Secretary of State to consider reviewing the liabilities test in the Bill. The weakness of this test has been part of the problem in getting convictions under the current law and it needs strengthening. Will he also look at the Canadian system of corporate probation and consider tabling amendments to include such provisions at a later stage in the Bill? I note that Families Against Corporate Killers, which has sent a briefing to all Members of Parliament, is calling for a voice in sentencing for the families of those involved in work-related deaths that is equal to the voice of families of other manslaughter or murder victims. That proposal merits serious consideration.
	If anyone is in any doubt that the Bill is needed as a priority, I ask them to look at the TUC research published last month that shows that nearly 4,500 young people are seriously injured or killed at work, which is 20 per cent. more than five years ago. One person under 25 dies every month in a workplace accident. We have a duty to offer the best protection to all workers but, for those who have a full working life ahead of them, our responsibilities are critical.

Russell Brown: I see that my hon. Friend is reaching the end of his contribution and I do not disagree with anything that he has said. I fully support the concept of corporate probation, but the issue is not only about the punishment of those who are responsible for something that has gone wrong. Accidents and incidents happen, so does he agree that every bit as important is the idea of changing the culture, the procedures and organisational activity that take place within the workplace?

Ian Stewart: I agree wholeheartedly. The key is in the quote from Sir Digby Jones. The issue is about raising the consciousness of the directing minds of the company so that it equates and is equal to their concern to exercise their duties properly and responsibly under fraud and other legislation for which they can be given a custodial sentence if they fail to exercise their duties.
	It has been interesting to see the reasoned approach of those on the official Opposition Front Bench. That amounts to an understanding that this measure is not about the nanny state and needless red tape. Health and safety at work is, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said,
	"the mark of a civilised society".
	This Bill is welcome; in fact, it is very welcome. It has been a long time in the oven but I do not believe that it is fully formed or ready for the table yet. I hope that the Government will correct the directors' duties omission and resolve the other concerns that I have highlighted so that we have a Bill on Third Reading that gives every possible protection to the working people of this country. With the commonality of effort described by the Secretary of State earlier in the debate, I am sure that we can do that.

James Brokenshire: I endorse the comments of the hon. Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart) about the reasoned debate that we have had. We all share the concern to try to find a resolution to the problem and to make improvements to ensure that fatalities do not happen in the future and that people receive proper justice when incidents have unfortunately occurred and when culpability can be pointed in the direction of a particular corporate.
	The points that have arisen this evening are about how best we can achieve that and whether the Bill is able to seek the punishment of those responsible for deaths of members of the public and, most important, employees just going about their daily work. Will it be able to bring about a change in the culture and the mindset of companies and the directors of organisations to ensure that we have a step change in the climate and the approach governing health and safety so that accidents and incidents can be prevented in future? As other hon. Members have said, however, the Bill falls short in a number of respects. I note that this point was reflected fairly in the Home Secretary's speech, at least on one issue. I certainly look forward to seeing the amendments to judge the extent to which those concerns are adequately and properly addressed.
	The first issue I want to consider is that of identification and of how we move on from the current requirement in common law for a controlling or directing mind. My concern, as has been expressed by others, is that the Bill appears to exchange one identification test for another—that of the senior manager. The issue has been raised by stakeholders and the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers has said that the current wording
	"will have the effect of fatally undermining the Bill from the outset and will result in negligent companies and directors escaping punishment through technical defences. Victims' families will, once again, be denied the justice to which they are entitled."
	I note that the Home Secretary has said that this specific issue will be focused on, but we cannot lose sight of such a fundamental and trenchant criticism of the structure if we are to have a law that will help to provide the sense of justice that we want to achieve.
	On the concept of senior management and senior management failure, it is interesting to think of what will happen in practice and what the courts will consider in testing that when this law comes before them. Travers Smith, a City law firm, said in one of its briefing notes:
	"This will be a question of fact and will vary from company to company. There are several hurdles in this definition. The term 'significant' is intended to capture only those whose role is decisive or influential. The reference to the company 'as a whole or a substantial part of it' means that divisional, regional or sectoral managers will only be caught if the operations for which they are responsible represent a substantial part of the company's operations as a whole. Clearly, the larger the organisation, the less likely it is that individual managers will be deemed to be responsible for a 'substantial' part of the activities of the organisation."
	In many ways, that builds on some of the comments from the hon. Member for Eccles. Clearly, the view that some lawyers seem to be forming is that if one is looking at large organisations, things will be much more difficult to pin down.
	Leading on from that is how companies operate and organise themselves. For example, there may be one very large corporate concern, but it is likely to have a holding company at the top, a plc, a listed company and, underneath that, lots of operating subsidiaries. I am not clear how the test will operate in that context. To use a lawyer's jargon, does it pierce the corporate veil or not? Ultimately, managers at a local level could be responding to directions or a general approach from a more senior aspect within the structure of the company, at the top. Is it possible to look up through the corporate structure to see who is ultimately responsible? Which corporate are we talking about? Is it the subsidiary, the intermediate holding company, the other intermediate holding company, or the top company? We need to be clear about the practical implications of how large organisations organise themselves. In many respects, one of the problems in the past has been that the existing manslaughter law seems to enable us to pin responsibility down in the case of small organisations, small companies and small businesses, where one can look at the structure that is in place, but perhaps not in the case of larger organisations, where, judging from the examples we have heard this afternoon, it has been difficult to establish that identification principle.

Ian Stewart: The hon. Gentleman articulates this complex issue well, but does he agree that if it is possible in the case of fraud, for example, to make the link between the point of the problem and the controlling mind, that should also be possible under the Bill?

James Brokenshire: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point that, in many respects, cuts to the heart of the argument. One of the interesting things in the context of what the Bill provides is the interrelationship with existing health and safety legislation, where that personal liability exists. That connection between the two things concerns me in terms of ensuring that, if an action is brought against the corporate as a consequence of the Bill, that does not in some way cut across or undermine any other actions that might lie against the directors personally in the context of health and safety legislation. There is a clear interrelationship that we need to look at. I listened carefully to the Home Secretary and he seemed to say quite clearly, "No. You could have an action that would rely on this Bill and that would not impact on separate potential actions that could lie against managers or directors in relation to health and safety legislation." That is a key aspect. It is the connection between the two things that, for me, provides the solution. As the Bill proceeds, we need to test whether that works in practice.
	On the other aspects, we need to consider where we are in terms of whom one can bring the claim against. This evening, we have discussed the issue of Crown immunity and the waiver of Crown immunity in certain circumstances. However, that is hemmed in by various exemptions that appear to draw distinctions in relation to factors that appear to apply equally to private sector organisations, as well as public bodies. We heard a moving and clear example of that type of case from the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton, East (Mr. Hood), who is no longer in his place. He talked about an investment that he said that Transco had not undertaken and said that that had resulted in loss of life.
	Clearly, the same arguments could be set out in relation to public bodies as well as private bodies. The Centre for Corporate Accountability, which has highlighted that as a concern or reservation, says:
	"It is important to note that such issues of resource allocation and competing interests are not unusual in the management of safety in commercial and industrial contexts—and so we do not accept that such a substantial exemption should be given to public bodies."
	It is its view that
	"this exclusion sends out entirely the wrong message to public bodies and the way in which they make decisions involving the safety of the public."
	We need to examine that further. There are issues in relation to the extent to which Crown immunity applies that are right and proper. Liberty has suggested that,
	"The Government seems to have drawn up a list of all the circumstance in which its gross negligence could cause death and has asked its lawyers to provide a get-out clause for every one of them."
	Although I understand the point that is being made in that quite direct assertion, I do not think that things have gone that far. However, we need to analyse carefully where exemption lies and whether it is right to draw a distinction between public authorities on the one hand and private concerns on the other. We should be trying to achieve justice for individuals, as well as ensuring that a climate of safety is promulgated and that fewer incidents occur.
	We need to effect this cultural change. In relation to the assessment of cost arising from the introduction of the Bill, it is interesting to note that it is suggested that the cost may not be that large. The explanatory notes on the financial effects of the Bill say that
	"because the offence is aimed at the sort of behaviour which would already be subject to prosecution (either under the existing law of corporate manslaughter or health and safety law), not all of the costs of"
	£2 million to £2.5 million, and court costs of £0.1 million to £0.2 million, are likely to be
	"in addition to costs currently incurred both by defendants and the Crown."
	The interesting point in that context is the extent to which we are facilitating change. There is the question whether the Bill will result in the step change that I have been talking about and whether it will ensure that we do not have further deaths, or that we limit the situation as much as possible by changing the sense of culture. We may run the risk of seeing companies or organisations that already comply either over-complying or being concerned about doing things that may well be lawful for them to do. But we may not necessarily get at those organisations that do not comply at all with health and safety legislation. In that respect, the Bill may not change that situation. It is a question of looking at enforcement and toughening up the regime for those who do not care about the application of existing health and safety law and therefore will probably ignore the Bill, however carefully we craft it and define it. But it is clear that the stated desire of providing
	"an added incentive to organisations with very poor safety standards to improve"
	is the right one; it is the one that we must look for.
	The Bill is complex. I should declare at this stage that I am a lawyer—a non-practising one, I hasten to add, so I do not have any direct personal interest in the outcome—and as a lawyer I find the Bill complicated and difficult, which is why it has taken so long to get to this stage. That said, I welcome the fact that it has got this far and that we are putting this issue on the agenda.
	Ultimately, however, we have to go back to the fundamental starting point. I refer to article 2.1 of the European convention on human rights, which states:
	"Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law."
	Protecting by law is our guiding principle, and I hope that the Bill will achieve that. At the moment, it does not, but I hope that, with the will of this House and through the changes made in Committee, we can create a statute that will fulfil the aspirations set out clearly by many Members in all parts of the House tonight, and that we provide a form of protection that provides justice, as well as improvements in health and safety.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. As a guide to the House, we have about 70 minutes before the wind-ups and 10 hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. I leave it to hon. Members to do the maths.

Terry Rooney: I join in the general welcome for the Bill's publication, despite the fact that it has shortcomings. It is the 10th anniversary of the original Law Commission report and it is time that we had some progress.
	To put the issue in context, earlier today I met a delegation of people from India who work in the ship-breaking industry, in which workers are extremely casualised. In India, they get a dollar a day in wages. They take approximately 100 tonnes of asbestos out of a ship with their bare hands, and they have no medical or physical protection. Some 9,000 people are dying each year. Sometimes, we need to reflect on just how far we in this country have progressed.
	Sadly, my co-Chairman on the Joint Committee that undertook the pre-legislative scrutiny, my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), cannot be with us tonight because he is on jury service; there is an irony in that. But I am glad that, to judge by the comments made, virtually everybody has read the Committee's report. Several Members have misquoted it, but at least they read it in the first place, which is helpful. Despite the suggestion from the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), I welcome the Government's response, particularly on corporate culture, remedial orders and removing the profit multiplication factor, which was a negative aspect of the original Bill.
	I also welcome the Home Secretary's comments on the definition of "senior manager", which is an issue that we addressed at great length in our report. He said that he would write to Opposition Front Benchers, and I wonder whether he will extend that offer to members of the Joint Committee, because we took a great interest in that issue.

Gerry Sutcliffe: I am very grateful to my colleague and fellow MP for Bradford for giving way. I am happy to make sure that the Committee gets a copy of the amendments, as well.

Terry Rooney: That is probably the only thing that I will get all night.
	Like many others who have spoken in this debate, I remain absolutely convinced that we will not make progress in this arena until we have individual liability of directors. This is not about revenge or prosecution; it is about changing the culture of the boardroom and changing behaviour. The day that the first person goes to jail is the day that we will really see a change in attitude. If we fail to get this provision into the Bill, the Government will have to return to the issue. It will come back to haunt them if they do not bite the bullet and include such a provision, before the Bill finishes its progress through the House.
	The Committee received lots of evidence, but perhaps the most telling was from Alan Ritchie, general secretary of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians. He gave us some horrendous tales of instructions given down the telephone by a senior manager to a site manager to do work that was downright dangerous. The following quote sums it up. Alan Ritchie said that
	"if you want to murder someone in this country, the best thing to do is to employ them in the construction industry: get them as a subcontractor and kill them and you would face a fine of £7,000."
	That is where we are at. The whole history of the construction industry sums up why we are in the mess that we are in some circumstances.
	The Engineering Employers' Federation was very much in favour of individual liability. Its argument was that the good companies and directors have nothing to fear from legislation; it is the bad people who we want. This is about not chasing people needlessly, but extinguishing the bad practices and addressing the bad individuals that kill people and cause the massive accidents that have taken place.
	When the Committee took evidence from representatives of the Home Office, I pressed them in particular on whether the Bill would have resulted in any change in the failure to prosecute for the major disasters that have taken place over the past 10 or 15 years. The answer was no. No matter how horrendous those incidents were—we have heard the comments of judges today—the Bill would have made no difference because no company or individual would have been prosecuted.

Dominic Grieve: I appreciate the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but there have been prosecutions—not for corporate manslaughter or manslaughter, but under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974. Although I am sure that this is not what he intended, it would be misleading to give the House the impression that no action was taken against those companies at all. The HSE is pretty proactive in that respect.

Terry Rooney: I am trying to make two points. First, there would have been no convictions for corporate manslaughter. Secondly, it is so difficult to mount a prosecution for the existing offence of gross negligence manslaughter for individuals that no one gets convicted. That is why the legislation needs to be extended to include individual liability. There would be the same protections that exist under section 37 of the 1974 Act because the conviction of a company would be needed before an individual could be convicted. However, there are cases when the public demand that someone should at least be brought before the courts so that the case can be tested before a jury makes a decision.
	Workers are killed in most such disasters, but many members of the public are also killed. The trade unions have a fantastic record of fighting for such legislation, speaking up for their members when accidents happen, representing them and giving them a voice. However, the innocent members of the public who are victims have no voice—no one stands up for them.
	The evidence taken by the Committee from Disaster Action, especially that from people from the Marchioness, was powerful. The Bill provides that private prosecutions may not be brought without the prior consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, but hon. Members should read the evidence of the people from the Marchioness and about the obstructions that were put in their way by legislative bodies, Law Officers and the legal system, which denied them any opportunity of justice, and then ask themselves whether such a provision is absolutely necessary. We need to reflect on the fact that the DPP does not have a very good track record on the issue. As I said, this is about not revenge, but justice for victims and their families.
	The Committee made extensive reference to "exclusively public functions", which is a curious phrase in the Bill. There is an arbitrary divide between government as a provider and a supplier of a service, because a prosecution can take place in one case, but not the other. The definition is difficult to follow. If the private and voluntary sectors are increasingly going to be involved in the provision of public services, the divide will become extremely grey. Frankly, it would be better if the provision were taken out of the Bill altogether. Deaths in custody are still a highly emotive issue with regard to the police force and the Prison Service. Under the definition, I think that a private prison could be prosecuted, but a public prison could not. This serious issue has caused trauma and distress to far too many people, yet no one is ever held accountable at present and it appears that the exemption will be maintained.
	There has been mention of whether the penalties should be related to turnover. I welcome the Government's commitment to consulting the Sentencing Guidelines Council, but if it is fair enough in the context of the Competition Commission that people can be fined up to 10 per cent. of turnover, something of that nature might be appropriate. I accept that in the Bill the fines are unlimited, but relating them to turnover in general terms is a reasonable approach. There is a danger of penalising shareholders. Ultimately, it is not the company that pays—it is always someone else. Most shareholders are pension funds, so penalising shareholders for the actions of individual directors is, in effect, robbing pension funds. We must be careful about that.
	My final point is on cases involving companies that are foreign owned, as is increasingly the case, and the difficulty of finding the senior management who take the decisions that lead to the action on the ground. Their being abroad can result in no prosecution being possible. A corollary of that, as we have seen far too often in the past, is cases in which a company is found guilty and is hit with a massive fine, and immediately ships its assets abroad.
	We raised with the Minister the possibility of creating the ability to seize assets—not to seize assets automatically, but to do it when there was a suspicion or fear that something untoward might happen. I am sorry that there is nothing about that in the Bill. The Minister will remember the classic example—I will not name the company involved in case I should not, but it is the asbestos case that arose in Armley in Leeds. It took 23 years for the residents and workers to get justice, but the day they won their victory the company shifted everything to either the Bahamas or the Cayman Islands and the people got not a penny. We would be remiss if we did not remain aware of that possibility and try to deal with it in the legislation.
	I welcome the Bill, despite its deficiencies. For too long, too many people have paid the ultimate price and too many people have escaped justice. We need to take the legislation a step further to include individual liability, but I hope we will make progress on that in Committee.

Stewart Hosie: The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), mentioned Scotland in his speech. It is worth reminding the House how Scotland ended up being in the scope of the Bill. The Centre for Corporate Accountability, which other hon. Members have mentioned, summed up the position rather well:
	"Ever since the Law Commission first discussed reform of the law of manslaughter in 1994, it has always been assumed that there would...be separate legislation for Scotland. The sudden decision to include Scotland in this Bill"—
	the Bill before the House today—
	"raises the question of how the Westminster Parliament can now legislate on corporate homicide, clearly a criminal law issue, where Scotland has long had separate laws and process from England and Wales. For this reason, CCA questions the soundness of the decision to include Scotland in the scope of the Bill."
	Let me recap the chronology up to the present point. In 2005, the Scottish Executive published a report on corporate homicide by their expert group. The report was welcomed by the Labour-Liberal Executive and by the whole Scottish Parliament, yet the Executive took no action. Instead, they deferred to the UK Government in support of the then draft Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill, which did not amend Scottish common law.
	In June this year, the Labour MSP Karen Gillon introduced, with all-party support, the Culpable Homicide (Scotland) Bill, which set out the criteria by which an individual may be guilty of culpable homicide, what offences were considered to constitute culpable homicide and how an organisation may be held liable for those offences. She revised the Bill in early September, but then withdrew it on 29 September, only a short time ago.
	It is worth pointing out that the Scottish Bill enjoyed extensive support among unions in Scotland and in the rest of the UK. At that time, they felt that the Bill before us—referred to as "the English Bill"—did not go far enough in creating a deterrent against endangering workers and citizens alike. Indeed, the Transport and General Workers Union, to which a number of Labour Members have referred, says that it
	"firmly believes that the Scottish Parliament should support legislation which will hold negligent employers and the individuals who hide behind the corporate veil to account."
	However, we are where we are and this is not a Scottish criminal Bill, but a UK health and safety Bill. I have listened to all the comments made by Members on both sides of the Chamber, and although there is unhappiness about some of the wording, there is genuine relief that we have something with which to work.
	There are concerns that are common to Members on both sides of the Chamber. One is the lack of personal liability—the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton, East (Mr. Hood) made that point best. Other Members spoke about the difference between private organisations and some public bodies. There is the issue of the legal arguments about the fact that there is still a requirement for a duty of care. The hon. Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart) put it best when he described the inconsistency whereby individual directors were charged, prosecuted and convicted under certain claims, but not under corporate homicide, when the death of an individual or individuals occurred.
	I shall briefly discuss the Scottish position, before commenting on the issue of senior managers, as I suspect that that will form the basis of the most significant debates in Committee and on Report. In Scotland, it is possible to convict a company of a common law crime if the prosecution can identify an individual or a group of individuals who were the "controlling mind" of a company—that is, whose acts and state of mind could be said to be that of the company itself—and who were guilty of that crime.
	The new Bill certainly removes the need to prosecute an individual before prosecuting an organisation, which is welcome, and it bases an offence on the way in which organisations are managed and organised. However, for the new offence to be committed, it is not sufficient that the death was caused by a gross breach in the way in which an organisation was organised and managed; the failure must have been, or must be, at a senior manager level. The senior manager is defined as a person who
	"plays a significant role in...the making of decisions about how the whole or a substantial part of"
	the organisation's
	"activities are to be managed or organised, or...the actual management or organising of the whole or a substantial part of those activities."
	In effect, that means that under the Bill only failures made by the most senior managers of a company would result in a company being prosecuted for corporate homicide. It means, too, that however serious the failures outside the management circle, the company may well escape prosecution under the legislation. That poses a danger because while small and family businesses and businesses with simple management structures may be easily subject to the new law, as they were with previous measures, large companies with complicated management structures may well escape prosecution. Actions taken on their behalf by junior managers—perhaps by foremen, particularly on building sites—that lead to the death of individuals could result in a company escaping prosecution.

Ann McKechin: Earlier today, the Home Secretary stated that individual directors could still be prosecuted under the common law offence of manslaughter, but the hon. Gentleman may be aware that in Scotland the offence of culpable homicide in common law does not include a definition of gross negligence. Does he accept that the common law position in Scotland needs to be revised, too, so that we can achieve some degree of equivalence?

Stewart Hosie: I certainly do. Whether or not the law is passed, either as it is or amended, we will have to revisit the position in Scotland, if not to achieve an absolutely comparable position, certainly to ensure that there are no loopholes in the Scottish common law position. I certainly agree to that extent.
	I want a good law, as does everyone in the Chamber, which adds to the protection for workers and customers, and does not unnecessarily chase, harass, or penalise directors, but forces a change in culture so that that is no longer necessary. As other Members have said, I suspect that the Bill as drafted does not address all our concerns. I hope that the Minister can give us some comfort in his summing up, and I very much look forward to amendments that will be tabled, both in Committee and during further proceedings on the Bill.

Frank Doran: This Bill has been a long time coming, as many of my hon. Friends and other Members have said. I am sure that it is clear to the Minister that it does not meet the aspirations of many of us who have argued over many years for the creation of a statutory offence of corporate killing. For all that, I welcome the Bill and congratulate my hon. Friend on securing it. It is important that we have established the principle and can move on from there.
	For many of us who speak in today's debate, this is not just an intellectual or even ideological issue. Our motivation comes from practical experience, as was well exemplified by my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton, East (Mr. Hood). In my case, as a young solicitor in the north-east of Scotland, I dealt with many personal injury cases, a high proportion of which came from the North sea oil and gas industry. I remember one particular case in which an oil worker had been seriously injured on a drill floor. The circumstances of the case and the way in which he was treated after the incident were horrifying but not unusual. I was negotiating damages on the worker's behalf with a representative of an American insurance company. After we had gone through the nitty-gritty of the case and done our bargaining, I asked him why his company tolerated its client's behaviour and the lack of a proper safety system. His response was fairly blunt and shocking. He told me that it was cheaper for oil companies to pay out higher premiums than it was to stop production or to interfere with processes.
	I am glad to say that that situation has changed. That incident happened at a time when the North sea oil and gas industry was being opened up and there was a Klondike mentality. The consequences were obvious in the number of serious injuries and deaths but, while the deaths were limited to individual incidents, the lack of a safety culture was tolerated, not only by the insurance companies and their clients but by the then Government.
	My second practical lesson concerned the inevitable consequence of that lack of safety culture: a major disaster in the North sea. In July 1988, the Piper Alpha oil production platform exploded and 167 men were killed. That is still the worst ever disaster in the oil and gas industry anywhere in the world. The then Government ordered an inquiry under Lord Cullen. As expected, he discovered a very poor safety culture and his detailed report showed failings around a wide range of operations and functions on the platform.
	When I look back at that difficult period in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, I can remember that many people in the oil and gas industry were stunned that the platforms that they had built—even one on the scale of Piper—were not capable of withstanding an explosion. What is more shocking now than anything else, though, is the complete lack of surprise that we all had about just how poor safety in the North sea oil and gas industry was. It was common currency that the disaster could have happened on any one of a number of platforms. I think that we all just accepted that it came with the territory.
	It was not only the operating company, Occidental, that was at fault. The Cullen report revealed that in June 1987, a year before the disaster, there had been a fatality on Piper Alpha. Department of Energy inspectors—the inspectorate at the time—inspected the platform and pointed out a catalogue of deficiencies. In June 1988, they inspected it again to follow up their original inspection. It is clear from Lord Cullen's report that none of the deficiencies pointed out in the earlier inspections, which had led to the death of a worker, had been remedied and that there had been no improvement. Less than a month after that last inspection, Piper Alpha exploded.
	There were serious failings in the operator safety systems and even more serious failings in the Department of Energy and the regulators' inspections. There should have been prosecutions for corporate killing against the oil company operators and against the Department of Energy. The Lord Advocate of Scotland decided not to prosecute Occidental and there was no possibility of a prosecution against the Department of Energy because of Crown immunity. Both could have been prosecuted under the Bill. It is welcome to remedy those failures alone, particularly in the sense that it removes Crown immunity, in circumstances that are of course limited, but important.
	I should like to refer to several points of detail. Some have already been mentioned and I shall rattle through them fairly quickly. Mindful of the comments made by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Stewart Hosie), I welcome the fact that we have a UK Bill that recognises that there are different legal systems that provide a common set of principles and approach. Company law, employment law and health and safety at work law operate across the whole of the UK, and that approach allows us to have some consistency. There are points of detail relating to the Scottish legal system that will have to be addressed and I hope that the Minister will be able to deal with them in Committee.
	On senior managers, I welcome the comments that the Home Secretary made earlier and hope that the Government will be able to deal with the many points that have been raised on this issue on both sides of the House. The last thing that we want is a Bill that provides loopholes to companies that will make it even more difficult to get a prosecution. This is an important issue, and I look forward to hearing the results of the Minister's deliberations.
	The most difficult issue, and probably the most contentious, is that of individual liability. I listened carefully to the Home Secretary earlier and I accept that it is important to focus on corporate responsibility. However, I find it difficult to understand why the Bill is drafted as it is, when individual directors and managers can be prosecuted under section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 in circumstances in which corporate responsibility is also relevant. It is important that Ministers should listen to the strong points that have been raised on this issue today.
	There is also the question of the extent of liability and the exclusion of non-incorporated bodies and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North (Ann McKechin) wants to make an issue of that in relation to the difference between partnership law in Scotland and England. That provision creates a particular problem, because the building and construction industry has one of the highest rates of industrial injuries and deaths, and a large proportion of the contractors and sub-contractors in that industry are not incorporated bodies. We must look at the issue very carefully.
	The Bill provides for only two penalties: fines and remedial orders. I shall be interested to hear how the Minister expects clause 10 to operate in this respect. It is unfortunate that the Government have not taken the opportunity to be more imaginative in regard to the way in which penalties could be applied. I know that representations have been made by the TUC, among others, about extending the range of penalties available. For example, it has proposed a penalty of corporate probation, which is quite a novel idea that I had not heard of before the TUC raised it with me. I have now been given an extremely interesting paper on it. The disqualification of directors, among other measures, could also provide incentives to ensure that companies take the legislation seriously and make a real commitment to improving their safety culture.
	I think that I am the only person to raise this next issue. I practised law for the last time nearly 20 years ago, so I am rusty, but I was a wee bit worried when I read clause 22(2), which provides:
	"Section 1 does not apply in relation to anything done or omitted before the commencement of that section."
	I understand the principle that legislation should not be retrospective. However, that subsection seems to provide a defence to a company that had procedures in place before the commencement of the Act that resulted in the death of one of its employees after its commencement. I might be misreading that provision—as I said, I am very rusty in the legal area—but I hope that a court would not use it as a basis on which to acquit if a company had done nothing since the establishment of its procedures until the death of the worker in those circumstances. If there is a fundamental weakness in a safety system, or a decision that leads to a death, that is a continuing matter until it is changed or until there are consequences. I would not want to rely on the ingenuity of the judiciary to make that decision for me and I would be grateful if the Minister could examine that subsection again.
	For many of us who have had experience of a death at work caused by criminal negligence, including the families and survivor friends, there is a great deal of unfinished business. We cannot turn back the clock, but the Bill will help many people to find some closure and I support it wholeheartedly.

James Clappison: The hon. Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart) said that this was not nanny state legislation. I agreed with the generality of his remarks and with that particular remark. In recent years, we have had perhaps several nurseries-full of nanny state legislation, but this is not nanny state legislation. This is an important area of the law, in which we need improvement on present practice and it is right for both Front Benches to look for a consensus in the search for that improvement.
	It was also the hon. Member for Eccles who underlined the seriousness of what is at stake by mentioning a number of tragic incidents. He mentioned Hatfield, which is close to my constituency, and Potter's Bar, which is in my constituency. I strongly sympathise with all who have complained about the delay in the resolution of such tragic incidents. Three and a half years after the Potter's Bar rail crash, my constituents are still waiting for an inquiry that would give them answers to their questions. The family of my constituent, Agnes Quinlevan, who lost her life, are waiting for recognition of the value of that life.
	I also agree with the approach of my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve). He took a very reasonable and well-informed view. We need to see how we can improve this legislation. The first thing that strikes me as being in need of improvement is the complexity. We can improve the Bill through simplification. It deals with a complex area of the law and, as the debate has shown, it is not without complication itself. We must remember that it will have to be implemented by the courts and understood by juries, whether or not they benefit from the services of the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. They need to understand the legislation, and there needs to be as little room as possible for escape through the loopholes that complexity inevitably brings.
	The Bill also needs to establish effective deterrents. We are talking about a very serious crime, with the most serious of all consequences. Of course the vast majority of employers are responsible and caring people, but a small minority are unscrupulous and irresponsible, and in some cases criminally negligent.
	The issues at stake are profound. Serving on the Joint Committee of the Home Affairs and Work and Pensions Committees, which looked into the Bill, I was struck by the evidence that we heard from groups and individuals. It brought home to me—if it needed to be brought home—just how profound the issues are, and just how tragic the consequences can be. There was, for instance, the evidence from the mother of Simon Jones, on behalf of the Simon Jones memorial campaign. The Home Secretary mentioned that lady in his speech, and his quotation from her words was apt.
	Let me briefly remind the House of the background to the case. Simon Jones was a 24-year-old university student taking a year out in 1998 who signed on at an employment agency to obtain work. One morning, without prior knowledge of where he was being sent, he was put in a taxi and sent to Shoreham docks. Within two hours of his arrival, he was dead. I am sure that all of us who heard the evidence from that lady before our Committee, and that of many other groups—including evidence on the Marchioness case—were moved, and understood the need to establish effective deterrents to try and safeguard employees and members of the public as much as possible.
	We need to view the Bill according to the criteria set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield. We need to ask what difference it makes and what, in practical terms, it adds to the existing law. We hope that it will make a difference, but I have one slight reservation on which I should like the Minister to comment. I have some idea of the extent of the problem, and it must be emphasised that we are talking about a very small minority of employers, but all the indications are that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.
	According to the explanatory notes, it is estimated that between 10 and 13 additional cases of corporate manslaughter will arise following the implementation of the new offence. Does that figure do full justice to the extent of the problem?
	As for penalties, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield about the level of fines. We must have appropriate levels that create a deterrent. Let us look at innovative penalties for the offence, bearing in mind the obvious restrictions on the type of penalty that there are for corporate bodies. In its evidence the CBI said that it was fully prepared to accept the proposal as a good basis to explore, taking a responsible and enlightened approach. There is a consensus on effective deterrents and on an effective and simplified law. That consensus exists across responsible employers, employees, trade unions and members of the public. We need to do justice to their concerns and to that consensus.
	I believe in free enterprise and the freedom to innovate, but not in employers having the freedom to be criminally negligent. We must crack down on that. Let us work together so that we have a Bill that achieves that end.

Katy Clark: I am grateful for the opportunity to put on record my support for the Bill, so far as it goes. As we have heard many times today, we have waited for a long time for the Bill. Many on this side of the House and in the wider Labour and trade union movement—as well as those who have been directly affected by incidents, particularly in the workplace—have campaigned long and hard for legislation that will protect all those in the workplace. We wanted a Bill that would cover all employing organisations, whether public, private, voluntary, incorporated or unincorporated, and the individuals who own and manage them. The Bill must hold all of them accountable under the law.
	Clearly, the Bill in its current form does not go as far as that. We have heard many times from Members on both sides of the House about how it could be improved to provide more protection for more people. The reality is that the Bill will help some people.
	We heard a number of powerful examples from hon. Members, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Doran), of situations where the Bill might provide great assistance. We know that, every year, more than 200 people die in the workplace. Last year, 384 members of the public died in the workplace as a result of negligent employers. We know that 1,000 other people died in road traffic incidents related to the workplace. Many other incidents are not recorded, including incidents that happen at sea but not logged.
	We are told that 70 per cent. of those incidents result from health and safety failures and negligence by management. We are aware of the scale of the problem and of the human tragedies that are involved. I met with my constituent Dorothy Wright earlier today, whose 37-year-old son Mark was killed last year in a workplace incident. She said that it was "a mother's worst nightmare." Her son was incinerated at work as a result of failures in health and safety in the workplace as well as failures in legal practices. That was also a tragedy for his wife and two young children.
	The reality is that many of those affected are young people and they are most at risk, which makes it an even greater tragedy if there is an incident. It is vital that we make sure that we have a legal regime that provides effective sanctions to ensure that management are not willing to take risks with the health and safety of their employees. We know that we do not have that now and we know that Scottish law on culpable homicide and English law on gross negligence and manslaughter have been completely inadequate to deal with those issues. I thus ask the Minister to look again at the legislation and perhaps to reflect on finding other ways of dealing with these problems.
	Many hon. Members have expressed strong views about the need for individual directors to have individual responsibility and to be liable for any lapses in their legal responsibility for health and safety at work. I ask Ministers to take the strength of those views into account and to reflect further on the Bill. Labour Members are certainly well aware of the strength of feeling on this issue up and down the country. We saw it at the Trades Union Congress last month, when policy decisions were taken to seek to strengthen the Bill, and we saw it overwhelmingly again at the Labour party conference, where the importance of effective individual sanctions and the responsibility of directors was emphasised. As we move through the process, I hope that those issues will be looked at again, so that we move forward from what is already good legislation to make it even more effective in certain circumstances. We want to ensure that the legislation is even better, dealing with a far wider range of circumstances.
	The reality is that hundreds of people are affected every year. Some cases may not be preventable, but the cases that we are talking about—cases of gross negligence, for example—are avoidable and preventable. Those cases should be subject to the criminal law and the individuals affected should get justice in the same way that others who have crimes committed against them get access to the justice system.

Philip Dunne: I am conscious of the time, so I shall confine my remarks to issues that have not been raised in the generality of today's debate, which has been extremely constructive. I welcome the Bill. I was privileged to serve on the Joint Committee that conducted pre-legislative scrutiny. The consensus was remarkable, except for one issue that I shall touch on in a few moments. On that, I am with the Government rather than with my Committee.
	We received some moving testimony from victims' groups, which brought home to me the depth of feeling about these personal tragedies, particularly about the lack of ability to right the wrong. People in those groups faced many years of anguish, mainly because of the lack of ability to bring successful prosecutions at the corporate level. Employers' groups have also welcomed the Bill, recognising the importance of having it on the statute book to help companies that are indulging in best practice corporate governance in their health and safety regimes. They are doing the right thing and only the bad apples will get caught.
	Somewhat against the flow of debate but in common with Conservative Front Benchers, I believe that individual liability provisions should not be built into the Bill. Speaking as chairman of the all-party group on corporate governance, my concern about going down the individual liability route is that we might find ourselves tying up major corporates in an excessive amount of red tape and weighing them down with an obsession with seeking to protect themselves from risks that they are already dealing with in most cases— [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) takes issue with that—

Michael Clapham: The hon. Gentleman has already heard from various contributions that only a small minority of corporation managers fail to follow proper safety practices. If the Bill included provisions on named directors, I believe that it would lead to a much better safety culture, which would result in fewer accidents down the line at work. It is not simply a matter of revenge, but of how we stimulate a whole safety culture.

Philip Dunne: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but we already have the legislative framework that allows us to pursue directors who are grossly negligent. The downside to the benefit of providing an umbrella and blanket approach is the burden that it would place on all the good companies that conduct themselves properly. That is a serious consideration about which the Government and directors' groups are concerned. I was about to cite a previous Home Secretary who felt that such a provision
	"would increase regulatory burdens, stifle entrepreneurial activity or create a risk averse culture".
	That would drive good directors out of high risk companies and, potentially, good companies out of this country.

Ian Stewart: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Philip Dunne: No, I am afraid that my time is very limited.
	The Bill needs to be improved in four areas. We have touched on the scope of the Bill, and the contradictions were well illustrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright). Partial immunity for the public sector is a matter of degree, and the Select Committee debated the question of the emergency services having some immunity for some of their actions, as otherwise some people might not be rescued because the members of the emergency service had been instructed not to save lives. That would be a dotty state of affairs and the Government have got that right.
	However, the Government have introduced several other exemptions that are illogical and nonsensical. Why should those responsible for statutory inspections, such as the Food Standards Agency, be exempted from the provisions in the Bill? Why should those responsible for inspecting child protection institutions be exempted? Why should the probation service be exempted from the provisions? I urge hon. Members to consider those points in Committee.
	The issue of undertakings has been raised by other Members. In particular, the hon. Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney) talked about subcontractors. It is wrong that unincorporated bodies will not be covered by this legislation in the same way as corporate bodies will be. I speak as a partner in a farming business that is unincorporated. If we had a health and safety issue, I should be capable of being sued in the same way as if the business were incorporated.
	We have heard much debate on the senior manager test. I suspect that much of the discussion in Committee will be on that issue and how one defines it, in this complicated corporate world of global companies in which decisions are taken at many levels.
	On the issue of territoriality, we have touched on the question of Scotland, but we have not mentioned territoriality beyond the British Isles. The Select Committee raised that issue, because several British companies operate offshore and outside British territorial waters. We have heard about the fishing industry, for example, and we should be able to pursue corporates if a negligent incident happens there. We should also consider whether the Bill should extend to British companies operating in the EU. I commend consideration of that point to the Committee.

Ann McKechin: Like several of my hon. Friends, I welcome the Bill. I also agree with some of the comments that have been made about the senior management test, and I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has indicated that he is prepared to reconsider the issue. The issues of penalties and corporate probation periods are also important.
	I shall concentrate on the issues pertaining to Scots law. As my hon. Friend the Minister is aware, the addition of Scotland to the Bill was a last minute call. As a result, Scotland has not benefited from the wide consultation on the Bill that has happened in England and Wales or the scrutiny of the Select Committee. That places a greater onus on the Government to try as hard as possible to ensure that the Bill works for Scotland as much as it does for the rest of the United Kingdom.
	I say that because the Stockline factory explosion occurred two and a half years ago in my constituency, killing nine people. As many other hon. Members have mentioned today, the human cost of death at work affects so many families in this country. In the past 10 years, the rate of fatal injury in Scotland has, with the exception of only one year, remained significantly higher than that in the UK as a whole. Similar differences are evident in the figures for major injuries.
	Scotland has a different legal environment for enforcement. Prosecutions must be made through the Procurator Fiscal Service rather than taken directly to court by the Health and Safety Executive. The Procurator Fiscal Office faces great challenges in its work load and it is perhaps unsurprising that few members have great experience in the health and safety aspect of the law.
	Sadly, the courts in Scotland tend to fine much lower amounts than those in the rest of the UK. In 2004-05, the average fine per conviction was £4,846—a decrease on the previous year of £8,191. We need a much better partnership between the Health and Safety Executive, the Procurator Fiscal Service and judges if we are to stop being the poor relation in the UK when it comes to health and safety.
	That is why I accept that Scotland cannot afford to lag behind the rest of the UK and why we should have legislation that covers the whole of the UK. However, as I said to the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Stewart Hosie) earlier, there is a fundamental difference in the common law position.
	The purpose of the Bill, as stated on page 3 of the explanatory notes, is to try to cover the
	"key aspects of the current common law offence of gross negligence manslaughter in England, Wales and Northern Ireland".
	It is trying to create equivalence in the law, regardless of the legal structure of the body that causes the death.
	That follows the common law definition of manslaughter by gross negligence in the Adomako case in 1997. It based its description on the civil law interpretation of a breach of a duty of care. However, the definition is the exact opposite in Scotland, where, in the Transco case, which my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton, East (Mr. Hood) mentioned, Lord Osbourne commented:
	"However, it is quite clear to me that the two definitions are fundamentally different...The Scottish definition contains no counterpart".
	If the Bill is enacted, it would not provide equivalence for Scotland but create a definition of a crime that would apply only to corporations and specific Crown bodies and not to individuals and other organisations that the measure does not cover. I do not propose that the Home Office start interfering with Scots criminal law—my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary can rest assured about that—but I hope that he will engage in urgent consultation with the Scottish Executive as well as specific institutions such as the Scottish Law Commission on the best legislative route to ensure coherence for the victims of the crimes that we are considering.
	Partnerships are excluded from the Bill on the basis that, in England, they are not a separate legal entity. However, the opposite is the case in Scotland. Partnerships are a separate legal entity and it could be argued that it would be logical to include them in the Bill.
	Pages 25 and 26 of the Joint Committee report recommended that the Government provide certainty on the law of causation by including the Law Commission's original provision in the Bill. The Government rejected that, based on several recent English legal cases, on page 8 of their response. Will my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary confirm whether the Department has taken specific advice on the matter as it relates to Scots law? If so, what were the conclusions?
	Clause 16 refers to prosecutions only by the public authorities, but for some odd reason it does not refer to Scotland and I therefore presume that private prosecutions in Scotland would be permitted under the Bill as it stands. Special constables are covered in only England and Wales. I am sure that we shall try to iron out those points in Committee.
	Like many other hon. Members, I welcome the Bill. More needs to be done to strengthen it to ensure that it works and I look forward such progress in Committee.

Michael Penning: Like many other hon. Members, I support the Bill. It goes a long way towards tackling the many anomalies that have occurred over the years. However, the Committee that considers it will have a difficult job.
	Unlike many hon. Members who have spoken, I do not have a legal background. However, I have a partly trade union background. I cannot claim, like the hon. Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart), to have been born a trade union member, but I was a member of the Fire Brigades Union for many years, and I am proud to have been a member.
	In that regard, I want to stress that one difficulty in the Bill has to do with Crown immunity. There is a difficult line to be drawn. I am sure that everyone in the House is proud of our firefighters and emergency services, but if we are not careful the people involved will think twice before they respond to an incident, such as rescuing someone from the ice, for example. They might not be worried about their own safety so much as about the safety of the officers who follow, because they might be held responsible in a court case if something goes wrong.
	That is one example of how Crown immunity could cause a real problem, but the House will recall the explosion at the Buncefield facility in my constituency on 11 December last year. The HSE had inspected the depot two weeks before the explosion took place. I accept the many stories that we have heard today about how bad employers and companies did not do the work recommended after health and safety inspections, with the result that accidents happened and lives were lost, yet that is not true of Buncefield. I shall not pre-empt Lord Newton's inquiry, but the evidence is that the HSE inspection found everything at the depot to be safe. Even so, two weeks later, every safety device there failed.
	I am not a lawyer and have no legal background, but I am pretty sure that the Bill means that the HSE would be exempt from prosecution if it were found to be negligent. This afternoon, I asked the House of Commons Library to confirm that. It is a brilliant organisation, and it very quickly produced a document for me.
	In its first paragraph, the document from the Library states that schedule 1 of the Bill would mean that the HSE would be liable to prosecution, but the next paragraph makes it clear that a judge would determine whether it owed a duty of care. This House should make such decisions: as we have heard already today, it is very dangerous to leave them to judges.
	I welcome the Bill very much, on behalf of all workers and members of the public. However, the Minister and other hon. Members face a very difficult job in taking it through the House. The exemptions for Crown immunity go too far, especially as they apply to the Ministry of Defence—another subject about which I have a little knowledge, although I do not have time to go into detail now. On the other hand, we must be careful not to damage the ability of firefighters and the members of the other emergency services to do their jobs in the way that makes us all so proud.
	I wish the Minister and the Committee luck. I look forward to seeing the Bill come back to the House.

Michael Clapham: In the few minutes available to me, I want to concentrate on just two issues—the need to act to reduce the number of fatalities at work, and the question of directors' duties.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart) said that 212 people had died in workplace accidents in 2005-06. He also highlighted why we need to set out directors' duties, but the number of fatalities seems to have reached a plateau over the past few years, even though the health and safety code was revised in 2000. I welcome this Bill, as it will help to create a health and safety culture that will allow progress to be made.
	Of the total of 212 accidents in 2005-06, 92 occurred in just two industries—construction, and agriculture, forestry and fisheries. Moreover, 54 per cent. of the total number of fatalities were caused by only three types of accident. The first type involves moving vehicles or moving objects, especially on construction sites; the second is people falling from heights and the third is falling objects. Those fatalities could be prevented. In fact, the Health and Safety Executive says that 70 per cent. of such accidents are preventable, so the important thing is to take action to prevent them.
	The Bill will stimulate a change in culture. The measure needs strengthening. Being able to identify directors will give us the opportunity to move the safety culture forward, because the board of directors—the boardroom—decides on the allocation of resources for health and safety. That is why it is important that we can identify directors. It would not mean that we were taking revenge on companies—the point I took up with the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne).
	We need to stimulate a safety culture that results in a change that reduces accidents. The legislation is important in that respect. We need to be able to identify the director because that would ensure that resources are put into dealing with health and safety. We would be able to create a different culture and move the plateau for injuries and fatalities in industry, which we have been unable to do since 2000.
	My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said that he was looking at the issue of directors. I urge him to ensure that there are powers to identify directors. That would strengthen the Bill; it would change the health and safety culture and move us forward.

Joan Humble: It is with great pleasure that I welcome the Bill as the fulfilment of a manifesto pledge and an indication that the Government intend further to extend the protection of its citizens and the recognition of human rights. The Bill is broadly supported—although with some caveats—by the trade union movement. I am a member of the Transport and General Workers Union and refer to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests.
	I shall not repeat the wide-ranging comments made by earlier speakers. I agree entirely with their emphasis that we should do everything possible to avoid the ghastly tragedies of the past. This is our opportunity to do so.
	I want to focus narrowly on how the Bill will affect members of our armed forces. I am chair of the all-party army deaths group, which focuses on peacetime non-combat deaths. It also helps to support the Deepcut and Beyond families group in drawing attention to their needs and campaigning for truth, justice and change.
	I pay tribute to the Government for avoiding the easy option of allowing Crown immunity to remain and for ensuring that the protection of the legislation will be available to members of the armed forces and individuals who suffer through unlawful actions. The Bill provides further recognition that human rights do not stop at the factory gate, the entrance to the barracks or the gangway of the naval vessel.
	The Bill would benefit from clarification and strengthening in several respects. First, the law should be fair to those who may be charged with offences under its provisions, but it must also be robust, to enable enforcement agencies to hold to account those responsible for the offences.
	Secondly, with special regard to the armed forces, we must ensure that the curtain of military silence and cap-badge loyalty that falls over fatal incidents cannot be a barrier to effective investigation. We need to ensure that the soldier who speaks out is protected. The whistleblower plays a vital role in the prevention of all corporate crime.
	Thirdly, we need to recognise the right of victims and to give bereaved families a clearer role in the process. Victims have a right to expect justice. We should be looking for ways in which their involvement and participation in the investigation and prosecution may be enhanced. The involvement of bereaved families would serve the interests of justice and assist the effective prosecution of offenders.
	I have set out my hopes for the Bill, but I have concerns, which have been expressed by other hon. Members, about the possible exemptions created for activities that are not a "relevant duty of care". As a member of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, I note the concern expressed in the joint report on the draft Corporate Manslaughter Bill that preparation for combat operations might encompass routine training. I note especially that, in response to recommendation 37, the Government said that they would provide further clarification. In fact, the Bill extends the exemptions to include training of a hazardous nature.
	All hon. Members recognise that the military are in a unique situation. Of course, combat must not be included in the Bill's parameters, but other areas should be included. I should like the Minister to clarify exactly how the Bill will help members of the armed forces to find redress if they are asked to carry out tasks that are unnecessarily hazardous and have no reasonable military purpose, yet are stated by the military command to be in preparation for an operation.
	I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister is aware of research by Dr. Alan Porter into exertional heat illness. For the record, the reference is Porter AMW, "Collapse from Exertional Heat Illness: implications and subsequent decisions". He has spent 15 years researching that illness, yet soldiers still die from it and he cannot find any example of where the activities involved have been of any use whatever in any campaign. That is exactly the sort of issue that needs to be addressed.
	If the Government insist on including acts of preparation as an exemption under the law, can they define how far back in time or the line of causation that preparation can stretch? In May 2003, a soldier who was previously stationed at Catterick barracks died while loading tanks bound for transport by sea to Iraq. Would such activities be considered part of combat operations? Will people in garages on military bases be included in the legislation?
	There has been some discussion about whether the Bill should apply overseas. Will it extend to military barracks overseas? Again, there have been such deaths overseas: 20-year-old Private David Shipley died in Germany in 2002, as a result of drowning in a pool that should have been emptied. The English coroner remarked that the account of Army witnesses bore all the hallmarks of a concocted story. The jury's verdict was one of unlawful killing.
	I could give many more examples of unfortunate deaths that have involved coroners' inquests and where serious doubts have been expressed about what happened. Coroners and the Health and Safety Executive have found—for example, in the case of Corporal Jason Pears—that there was a corporate responsibility behind such deaths, yet no one has been prosecuted. We cannot continue to allow that to happen. The Bill gives us the opportunity to address the concerns of Army families throughout the country, where there is a clear indication of corporate responsibility in such deaths, and I look forward to the successful passage of this legislation.

Edward Garnier: The hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) was the 20th contributor to the debate, and the House can congratulate itself on that. We started late, for perfectly understandable reasons, but I will be the 21st and the Minister will be the 22nd contributor. The debate has been good-tempered and well informed, and the House should also congratulate itself on that. I hope that I do not take us off that line as I sum up on behalf of the official Opposition.
	As everyone has said, this Bill is hugely well intentioned. There cannot be anyone in the House who wants to see people being killed at work, and there cannot be anyone who runs a company, undertaking or public service who goes into work saying that he or she looks forward to increasing the number of avoidable fatalities at work. We come at this issue by agreeing that 212 deaths—or whatever the figure may be—are too many and that it is worth attempting to do what we can to reduce the number.
	The Bill has been questioned or welcomed in a guarded fashion by Members on both sides. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) succinctly pointed out, it will have to stand comparison with the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 despite the concerns about individual prosecutions and the fact mentioned by Members on both sides that the average penalty has been small in relation to the hideous consequences of an accident or gross negligence that causes death.
	I fear that the Bill may not do what we want it to do. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) said, this is a complex area of law and the fact that it is complex means that things may need to be improved over time, or that there are issues that the Select Committees dealing with the work of the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office or the Joint Committee on Human Rights, chaired by the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), might wish to consider once the Bill becomes law.
	Whichever side of the House we sit, and whatever our professional or other background, there is a consensus that we need somehow or other to engender a culture in the workplace so that managers and employees feel safe and can go to work knowing that if something goes wrong, a system is in place that will provide justice for their families.
	I appreciate the perfectly natural and human desire that we all share. Several hon. Members have mentioned constituency cases. The hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton, East (Mr. Hood) mentioned the Larkhall gas disaster, the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Doran) referred to Piper Alpha, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere mentioned the Potters Bar railway crash in his constituency, and the hon. Member for Hendon referred to the King's Cross disaster, which affected him as a practising solicitor. Members have been able to draw on their personal or constituency experiences to the benefit of the debate, and they have reflected the public's need to see somebody held responsible for terrible accidents.
	Some of those accidents have led to the deaths of perhaps one or two people, and some, like the Herald of Free Enterprise at Zeebrugge, which was mentioned by one of the Labour Members with shipping or maritime experience— [ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Dover (Gwyn Prosser) is not in his place at the moment. In the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, as in King's Cross and some of the other railway disasters, huge numbers of people lost their lives. So, what do we do about that? What do we do that is sensible and practical?
	Of course, every fatality is a terrible thing for the family involved. For example, most people who have had a loved one killed in a car accident, as a result of careless driving or of someone at the wheel being well over the limit, want something to mark the appalling tragedy that has hit their family. Often, the victims' families leave court feeling that they have not had their genuine concerns assuaged. Parliament must do what is right, of course, but it must also limit itself to doing what is possible. We must not over-promise and we must not increase expectations to a level at which they cannot be met, and thus decrease public confidence in the justice system or the law-making system as a whole.
	As people have discussed the Bill, concerns have been expressed about the meaning of "senior manager" and about the decision by the Government to give the judge the power to decide whether the relevant duty of care exists in a particular case. Concerns have been expressed about the way in which Crown immunity should touch on the armed forces and the emergency services. There have been some interesting discussions about the way in which the penalties and the remedies that the Bill provides should operate. There is room, certainly under the clause 10 remedies, for some quite imaginative thinking. There was concern, for example, that company directors could not be disqualified under the Bill. Well, who knows? Perhaps a thoughtful Minister at the Home Office might come up with a draft set of guidelines that would, for example, lead to amendments to the Bill that would allow for one of the remedies to be that a particular individual should no longer be allowed to serve as a company director, either for ever or for some period of time. The Committee ought to focus its mind on that sort of thing. I am sure that the Government, with all the assistance that they have at their disposal, will be willing to consider that.
	I dare say that the Home Secretary, in his opening remarks, did not display his usual mastery of his brief. He may have been distracted by what was going on in the other place, where I fear the Government suffered a serious defeat on the proposal to abolish the prisons inspectorate. However, he was able to take on board the fact that there is an area of concern about the liability of unincorporated bodies. We may well see more of that in Committee.
	I have only a very little time left to sum up, which I do not mind at all because that has made it possible for 20 speakers to get in ahead of me. I am pleased to say that during the debate broad themes have emerged. First, there is the need for the Bill to work. Secondly, there is the need for the Bill to have UK applicability. That point has been made by Scottish Members, as well as English Members. There is also a need to make sure that the remedies and the penalties fit the crime. Above all, we want to ensure that when the Bill comes into law, as it no doubt will, it does so in a fashion that does not allow anybody to say that it was but a gesture Bill that was not designed to improve, or to change the culture of, safety in the workplace, and that the only important bit about it was its name.
	The words "corporate manslaughter and corporate homicide" ring loudly across this Chamber, but we need to be sure that the Bill's title is not the best part of it. It is the guts of it—the body—that is so important, and this Parliament, including the Standing Committee, need to concentrate very carefully on the detail of these proposals. A Bill that sounds good but does no good is no Bill at all.

Gerry Sutcliffe: Nobody in this Chamber could be more proud than I am to wind up this debate on corporate manslaughter. I am a member of the trade union Amicus, and I was proud to be a full-time trade union officer before coming into this House 12 years ago. The idea of corporate manslaughter and of corporate killing has always been with me, given my experiences as a full-time trade union officer in the printing industry. The impact of the deaths caused by corporate manslaughter has been expressed tonight in contributions from Members in all parts of the House. I was particularly pleased to hear the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton, East (Mr. Hood). He made a moving speech about the death of a constituent of his and its impact on the family.
	The Bill is not here by accident—it has not simply come along without a great deal of thought. As all Members have said, the issues that we have to face are clearly complex. Yes, the Bill has been a long time coming, but it is here—a Bill introduced by a Labour Government, and I am proud of that fact.

David Anderson: I welcome the Bill and I am very proud to be associated with it, but surely the real meaning behind it is not that we want to punish those who have killed people, but that we want to prevent them from killing people in the first place. We believe very strongly that if individuals are not named, that will be hard to achieve.

Gerry Sutcliffe: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is clear that there are issues that we need to debate further, and I look forward to discussing them in greater detail in Committee.
	As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said when he outlined the Bill this afternoon, there are differences between us, but we should not lose sight of the nature of what we are trying to achieve in respect of corporate manslaughter. The Bill builds on the health and safety legislation that Labour Governments have introduced over many years, and which we are very proud of, particularly the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974.
	The Bill is a short one but, as we have heard today, the debate that it has generated is not without contention; there are complex issues that we have to face. However, there is no real argument as to whether the current law of corporate manslaughter is working: it clearly is not. It does not provide justice and it does not apply fairly to organisations. As has been said, this is about trying to bring about a culture change within organisations.
	As the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) said, the winding-up time has been limited because of the need to ensure that Members were able to contribute to the debate. Many issues have been raised and I shall try to deal with as many as possible; I shall write to Members on those with which I am unable to deal. As the Home Secretary said, we will let Members know about the amendments that we want make, particularly on the liability test.
	The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) expressed the concern that the Bill might not add anything to the existing health and safety legislation. For the families of those killed through the abject failure of organisations to meet their health and safety responsibilities, the Bill is far from pointless. It is important that culpable behaviour be properly labelled, especially to the relatives of those who have died.
	Several Members raised the question of individual liability. In answering my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Gwyn Prosser), my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary may at one point have suggested that the Bill might deal with this issue, but he was then very clear and at pains to say that it does not.
	The problem with the law is that corporate liability is contingent on individual liability. That does not work because the nature of decision making in complex organisations is such that responsibility can rarely be laid at the door of a specific individual, which has made it difficult to prosecute large organisations for manslaughter. The Bill tackles that specific problem. It establishes a new basis for liability that shifts the focus from the conduct of individuals and places it on the management of systems and processes. The Bill is concerned with creating an effective corporate offence, not individual liability.
	We have heard concern from hon. Members on both sides of the House about the senior manager test. We have taken seriously the points made about the test during consultation on and scrutiny of the draft Bill. Our intention is to make corporations liable when the organisation as a whole has utterly inadequate practices or systems for managing health and safety. We introduced the concept of failure at a senior level to provide reassurance and clarity on the fact that the offence should not capture failures at just a junior level. The measure was widely misinterpreted as reintroducing a form of liability that was reliant on finding individuals who could be taken to represent an organisation guilty of manslaughter.
	As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, we will bring forward a new test in Committee that will achieve our aims in a way that does not risk the reintroduction of an identification obstacle. We will make the amendment available to the Chairs of the Work and Pensions Committee, the Home Affairs Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which have played a crucial and central part in what we have tried to achieve with the Bill.
	Our debate also touched on the position of public bodies and activities not covered by the Bill. It is quite wrong to say that the way in which we have approached this effectively brings Crown immunity in through the back door. The existing law of corporate manslaughter has no application to the Crown at all. We have lifted Crown immunity for the new offence because the Government believe that it is right that the offence applies equally to the public and private sectors when they are engaged in similar activities. It is right that Crown workers are protected by the Bill.
	The Bill comprehensively covers the Crown's duties to provide safe systems of work for employees and in the workplace. Enabling the judicial scrutiny of breaches of those duties in the context of manslaughter is an unprecedented step. This is not about applying criminal law to the way in which core Government or public functions are carried out. Carrying out such functions involves fundamental public matters, such as the allocation of limited public resources and protecting the public from harm that is often created by others.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney) asked whether public and private prisons would be treated differently. As far as the Bill is concerned, they are both in for employer duties and the safety of premises, but they will both be out for dealings related to operational prison activities.
	The debate also touched on deaths in custody and the police. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made it clear that there are independent inspectorates: the police have the Independent Police Complaints Commission and we also have the police and probations ombudsman.
	I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who chairs the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the report of which came out this morning. We will have to take some time to consider the issues raised by the Committee, but we will examine them closely. We believe that the Bill is compliant with the European convention on human rights, but we will read in great detail what has been said.
	The hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) asked whether 10 to 13 cases would be enough. That is not a limit, but what we suspect that the number of cases will be. Several hon. Members asked about the Macrory report, which is about corporate sanctions, rather than duties on directors. In Committee, we need to examine the duty of care, directors' duties and disqualification. However, we believe that they are all affected by other aspects of Government policy, notably the Companies Bill and issues affecting the Department for Work and Pensions. I hope that we have given clarification on points raised about Scotland.
	The UK has a safety record of which it can be proud, but too many people are dying at work. I commend the Bill to the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Bill accordingly read a Second time.

CORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER AND CORPORATE HOMICIDE BILL (PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 83A(6) (Programme motions),
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill:
	 Committal
	1. The Bill shall be committed to a Standing Committee.
	 Proceedings in Standing Committee
	2. Proceedings in the Standing Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 31st October 2006.
	3. The Standing Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
	 Consideration and Third Reading
	4. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
	5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
	6. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.
	 Other proceedings
	7. Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of any messages from the Lords) may be programmed.— [Mr. Heppell.]
	 The House divided: Ayes 278, Noes 48.

Question accordingly agreed to.

CORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER AND CORPORATE HOMICIDE BILL (CARRY-OVER)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 80A (Carry-over motions),
	That if, at the conclusion of this Session of Parliament, proceedings on the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill have not been completed, they shall be resumed in the next Session.— [Liz Blackman.]
	 The House divided: Ayes 292, Noes 26.

Question accordingly agreed to.

David Wilshire: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today, you and many hundreds of us attended a memorial service for our good friend Mr. Eric Forth. Is there any way in which Standing Orders allow us to have put into  Hansard tomorrow that, had Mr. Forth been here tonight, he would have opposed both of those procedural motions, because they were things that he hated?

Mr. Speaker: I remember the right hon. Member, Eric Forth, with great fondness, but I do not think that Standing Orders can reflect anything other than the fact that the hon. Gentleman has now put the matter on the record—that, had Eric Forth been present, he would have opposed those motions. Of course, the one thing that he taught us all was to keep within the strict rules of the House. That was his expertise and he never gave the Speaker any problems because he always kept within those rules. We all regret the passing of Eric Forth, especially today when we attended his memorial service.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

CARERS (FLEXIBLE WORKING)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Liz Blackman.]

Helen Jones: In 1998, this Government became the first to take the needs of carers seriously when they established the national carers' strategy to look across government at the needs of carers and to recognise the enormous contribution that they make to their families and to society as a whole. Since then, much has been achieved, which I want to recognise and applaud before I go any further. The carers' premium, for instance, has increased from £12 to £25.80 a week and the carers' grant to local authorities to provide additional breaks for carers, which was £20 million when it was introduced in 1999, went up last year to £285 million. The state second pension will enable carers to build up pension credit of their own over time. All that is good and valuable, as is the support that the Government gave to the Carers (Equal Opportunities) Act 2004 and the decision to introduce into the Work and Families Act 2006 the right to flexible working for carers.
	While we recognise the progress made, we all have to be honest and say that we need to go further. We need to do so not only for the sake of carers, but for ourselves, because the changing needs of our economy and the skills shortages that we will face in future mean that we are going to need carers who are able to combine their caring with paid work. Now that the Government have given carers many more rights at work, our task is to ensure that they can exercise them for the benefit of themselves, their families and society as a whole.
	All the indications are that many carers wish to combine their caring with paid work. In fact, 80 per cent. of carers are of working age and they already form 12 per cent. of the work force. If they are to exercise their rights successfully, it is important that they are not driven out of the work force because they cannot receive the support that they need or because it becomes financially unviable for them to work. In order to ensure that that does not happen, we need to achieve two things. We need to look carefully into the support available to carers and into how the carers' allowance currently operates. That is what I shall concentrate on tonight.
	Very few carers' assessments even now ask about their wish to work or their current job. Although the 2004 Act ought to change that, the cultural shift is taking a very long time to come about. In addition, I believe that the carers' allowance as currently constituted leads to real injustice and amounts to a massive disincentive to work. At £46.95 a week, it is already the lowest income replacement benefit and it is for a minimum of 35 hours of caring. Because of the rule that one must not be gainfully employed, once one earns more than £84, the allowance stops. There is no taper; it is a complete cut-off.
	In providing an example of what that leads to, I cite the case of Mrs. Lesley Jarvis. She was one of the carers that I was privileged to meet on the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers carers' day last June. I really mean that it was a privilege, which will become apparent when we understand what Mrs. Jarvis does. Her husband had a massive stroke and needs 24-hour care. Her family helps to care for him during the day, but she looks after him during the evenings and at weekends. That allows her to work, but by making the huge effort to keep herself in employment, she earns too much to qualify for carers' allowance. Mrs. Jarvis works in retail, which is a euphemism for not being paid very much. In terms of the carers' allowance, too much need not be very much at all.
	Another case cited by USDAW is of a gentleman who gave up work to care for his mother. He now works from 7 am to 1 pm and cares for his mother until 7 pm each evening and at weekends. He earns £150. In effect, with both his caring and paid work, he works 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for £150. That is intolerable in a strong economy in the 21st century. It is even more scandalous when we realise how much carers save the economy. They do not do it for that reason—they do it for love—but it is undoubtedly true that their unpaid caring saves us an extraordinary amount of money.
	It costs a minimum of £377 a week to keep someone in a local council home. It costs £1,000 a week to keep someone in an acute hospital ward. It is estimated that carers, as well as improving the quality of life of the people for whom they care, save the economy £57 billion a year. That is the entire cost of the NHS and £10,000 per carer.
	In return, we not only give them very little, but subject them to massive bureaucracy when they want to work. Maggie Hughes is another carer whom I met that day. She told me that if carers are close to the £84 earnings limit, they are kept on a non-established list. That means that they have to keep producing wage slips and letters from their employer and filling in forms. That is very time consuming. She also found that going back and forth to the Benefits Agency used up a lot of time and energy that, together with work and caring, she simply did not have. We can do better than that for people who are making such an effort to help themselves.
	We have to do better, not only for the carers, but for ourselves. Our working population is declining, relative to the rest of the population. The Government rightly want to encourage work for those who can, for their own benefit and that of the economy. But our social care system relies on an army of unpaid carers. The Pensions Commission tells us that whatever choice we make on pensions we will all have to work longer, but it is estimated that by 2037 we will need an extra 3.4 million carers just to cope with the rising number of elderly and frail people. We are living longer and as a result we spend more years in ill health. Even over the next 20 years our economy will need an extra 2 million workers. Only a quarter of those will come from school leavers.
	As the Education and Skills Committee, of which I am a member, points out, that means that adult skills will be vital in the future. We cannot afford to lose the skills and experience of people who have caring responsibilities. We have to find a way of squaring the circle, because that is vital to our future economic prospects. It has other benefits. Keeping carers in work allows them to keep their skills up to date, so that when they are ready to go back to work full-time, they are more able to do so. It helps to tackle the feelings of isolation from which many carers suffer and it has health benefits. Most importantly, it helps to keep people out of poverty, both when they are caring and later as they get older.
	Yet we make it more difficult for people not only to stay in work, but to get back to work. There is no mechanism for allowing carers to try out a job and perhaps go back on benefits if it does not work out without going through the huge bureaucratic process all over again. When people want to try to study to improve their qualifications, they encounter the same problem with carer's allowance: if they study more than 21 hours a week, they lose all their carer's allowance. Yet many vocational qualifications require more than 21 hours a week of study. What sort of message does that give people who are doing their best to improve their situation? It is more worrying when we realise that the peak age for caring is between 45 and 64—exactly the age when people have acquired skills and experience and progressed in their jobs so that we can least afford to lose them.
	If we examined what we would save in carers' ill health, the contributions that people in work would make—it is estimated that one in three carers who are currently not in paid employment would like to be, if they had the opportunity—and what we would save in future in pensions and benefits, we might realise that it would pay us to ensure that more carers could stay in work.
	Although I am making the economic case, it is fundamentally a matter of justice. Sometimes we simply have to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. It is intolerable that people who carry such a heavy burden and save the economy so much money are forced into poverty as a result. That often happens. A survey by Carers UK showed that one in five carers have had to cut back on food; one in three find difficulty paying utility bills and, astonishingly, four out of 10 find that trying to pay for the support and services that they need causes them financial hardship.
	Let me quote Maggie Hughes again—I hope that she will not mind. She also works in retail and cares for her disabled son. She said:
	"When my other children could not look after Stephen on Saturdays, I had to pay someone to look after him. This didn't work out as it was costing me more money to pay someone to look after Stephen than I was earning."
	That is the Catch-22 into which we put many people. They cannot earn too much because they lose carer's allowance and that means that they cannot afford the services that they may need.
	More than that, we ensure that carers live in poverty in future. One in three have no savings. There is nothing to pay for the breakdown of something in the house and no resources for their old age. Although the state second pension will help many carers, it is not a substitute for being able to work and build up a better pension in one's own right. Yet because of the "gainfully employed" rule, those who work find that they are excluded from many other benefits such as statutory sick pay, statutory maternity and adoption pay and pension contributions. We are storing up a problem for the future. We must tackle it.
	It will not be easy to rebalance the system—everyone accepts that. All the carers to whom I have spoken accept that there must be safeguards against fraud. However, difficulty is not an excuse for not starting on something. The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire), has a good track record and is concerned about the issue. We need to ensure that carers get the support and equipment that they need quickly to help them to work, not only because it is their right but because it is that of the people for whom they care. We should examine the way in which carer's allowance works, with a view to ensuring that, in future, it is an allowance with a taper, which rewards work rather than acting as a massive disincentive to work.
	We should also look at making an exemption in respect of the number of hours of study undertaken by people pursuing a recognised vocational qualification. In addition, we should consider establishing a scheme, similar to the one that operates for disabled people, that would allow carers to try going back to work but then to return to claiming benefit if that does not work out.
	At the Labour party conference, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said that he wanted the honours system to reward people such as carers and home helps. I agree 100 per cent., but he would agree with me than an MBE is not much use to people who cannot pay their bills or who face poverty in old age. It is time for us to look at the problem very seriously and to give carers the recognition that they deserve. That is in their interests, but it is in our interests too.
	I shall end my speech there, as I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown) wants to make a short contribution.

Russell Brown: I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones) on securing this debate, and I shall merely supplement some of the points that she made.
	I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is aware of the admirable organisation Apex Scotland, which does tremendous work with offenders. Its real aim is to prevent reoffending by people who, all too often, have other problems related to alcohol or drugs. Last Friday, I had the opportunity to meet a group of Apex Scotland's employees and volunteers, as well as some of its clients. Later that afternoon, ironically enough, a constituent visiting my surgery told me that he had an excellent rapport with Apex Scotland and with the Department for Work and Pensions, and that he had been able to help a young man to take advantage of the new deal and perform 16 hours of work a week.
	The arrangement worked tremendously well for the young man in question. It had really built up his self-esteem, to the point where he was able to leave my constituent's employment and move on to work elsewhere. However, that success created a problem, and my constituent went back to Apex Scotland to look for someone else to whom he could offer the same chance. The work he had to offer was only farm labouring, and the young man recommended to him was surviving on income support. He was also caring for his father, who was terminally ill with cancer, which meant that his income, including carer's allowance of £46.95, amounted to £83.80.
	The 16 hours of new deal work that this young man would do for my constituent would have brought him an income of £86 a week, at the new minimum wage, but it would also cause him to lose his carer's allowance. The House must bear it in mind that the 16 hours a week was about as much as the young man could cope with. He was trying to get back into a work environment, but he was not sure that he could afford the penalty that losing the safety net of the carer's allowance would amount to.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North said earlier, something needs to be done about people who find themselves in that situation. Perhaps we could introduce a sliding scale for the carer's allowance, but I merely want to supplement the arguments that my hon. Friend made earlier. I hope that our good friend the Minister will look favourably at the matter. She has been receptive to similar proposals that have come her way in the past, and I look forward to her response this evening.

Anne McGuire: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones) on securing the debate and on raising some important and sensitive issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown) also raised issues by illustrating a situation that he had come across recently.
	The issues are difficult, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North highlighted in her contribution; none of them is straightforward—for example, trying to rebalance the carers' allowance and other allowances—but I hope that over the next 10 minutes I shall be able to give my hon. Friends some comfort and to set out some of the ways in which we are trying to do things better.
	As most people in the House understand, caring is not something that other people do; it is often something that we shall do at some point in our life, which gives us empathy with some of the issues that have been raised tonight. As my hon. Friend pointed out, there is an ageing population and an increased demand for care at home. People do not necessarily want to move away from home so the role of informal carers is set to become even more significant in the future.
	We all recognise that for some carers—perhaps those with a disabled daughter or son—caring can be a lifelong commitment; it is not something that they can opt out of when it suits them. My hon. Friend said that the caring peaks are for people between the ages of 45 and 64, when their parents are growing older, and that is certainly reflected in the number of people receiving carer's allowance.
	I realise that my hon. Friend wants to focus on issues that mainly affect carers of working age. However, she will recognise that many carers over pension age are still very much engaged in caring responsibilities. That is why provision for carers has developed over a broad front and not in the focused area that the debate has highlighted. I hope that my hon. Friend will recognise in particular that the Government's removal of the age limit for claiming carer's allowance has given an additional 188,000 pensioner carers access to an additional amount through pension credit, which means that they are up to £26.35 a week better off than other pension credit recipients.
	Carers' allowance is a non-contributory and non-income-related benefit for those providing informal care. It helps carers who are not entitled to other help from social security or who do not have significant part-time earnings, or no earnings. It is in fact an income replacement benefit. The earnings limit is one of the benefit's essential features. From 2001, we raised the limit from £50 to £72 a week—an increase of more than 40 per cent. We also aligned the amount with the lower earnings level of national insurance contributions so that it increases every year, which was not the case before 2001.
	The limit is currently £84 a week, as my hon. Friend indicated. However, people can receive carer's allowance with earnings well in excess of that amount. In line with the general rules in social security, when someone claims the allowance their gross earnings are converted to a net earnings figure by deducting income tax, national insurance contributions and half of any payments to a personal or occupational pension scheme. There are also allowances for the business expenses of self-employed people.
	Perhaps I can illustrate the process by quickly describing a couple of real case studies, as the impression has been created that £84 is the limit that a person can earn. A woman who looks after her partner is receiving carers' allowance. She decides to work part-time and her weekly earnings, net of income tax and national insurance contributions are £150. She has to pay a carer to look after her husband, Peter, while she is at work, which costs £85 a week. Half her net earnings, or £75 a week, can be allowed towards that expense, reducing her net earnings figure for carer's allowance purposes to £75 a week.
	I appreciate that such calculations may seem difficult during a short Adjournment debate at the end of an evening. However, we make allowances for certain expenses, and they allow individuals to earn significantly more than £84 a week, as my case study has indicated. I recognise that we need to get that message across far more clearly to people who are either thinking of finding employment or who are currently in employment. I could give the House a similar example of someone who is self-employed if I had the time.
	I recognise that my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North thinks that we should not just introduce a taper but perhaps remove the earnings limit altogether. I understand that the ambition to do more for carers is something that echoes around many parts of the House, and we are always considering what more we might do to help them. The problem is that, if we lift the earnings limit, we would remove the rationale for carer's allowance itself, which is to provide a measure of help for carers who are disadvantaged by limited employment opportunities. Those who provide 35 hours of care a week will tend not to have high personal earnings. It is the minority who are in a relatively more favourable position with regard to earnings who would gain if the earnings limit were removed.
	My hon. Friend also suggested—this links with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown)—the introduction of a tapered earnings limit for carers' allowance. Of course, with a taper, carers who earned more than the carers' allowance earning limit would find that their carers' allowance was reduced by a percentage of their earnings, not by the total.
	I must be quite frank that the problem with tapers is that they can often add additional complexity to the system and incur quite significant additional administrative costs. However, I hear what my hon. Friend has said about one of her constituents who had to go to Benefits Agency almost every other week or month, or whatever, to get some sort of qualification for her carer's allowance. In fact, her constituent should have to undertake that sort of additional exercise only when her income regularly fluctuates.

Helen Jones: I am sure that my hon. Friend knows, if she thinks about this, that many women who work in retail jobs have variable hours and experience a regular variation in income and that many carers are forced to accept what hours they can get.

Anne McGuire: I do not have enough time to do so this evening, but these are some of the issues that I want to address inside the Department and with carers' organisations. I shall, however, briefly mention the response that the Department and I, as the Minister with specific responsibility for this issue, are making. I have asked my officials to look carefully at some of the points that my hon. Friend and others have raised and, to this end, I have established a small stakeholder working group to focus on benefit and employment-related issues, some of which have been highlighted tonight. It will also cover how we deliver those policies through the Disability and Carers Service, Jobcentre Plus and the Pension Service. I am delighted to advise my hon. Friend that about a dozen organisations have agreed to participate with me in the working group, and they include Carers UK, the Princess Royal Trust for Carers, Carers Scotland and Carers Wales. We will look at some of the issues that she has raised.
	I am sorry that we have not had a longer opportunity to refer to some of the other issues by which we are looking at enhancing our support for carers through pension entitlements and so on, but I reassure my hon. Friend that I have listened carefully to the significant and serious points that she raised. I give her my commitment that I will look at them in the cold light of day after this debate.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Eleven o'clock.